“What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.”

“The loveliest creations of men are persistently painful. What would be the description of happiness?”

“Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“Long only for what you have.”

“Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.”

“I do not love men: I love what devours them.”