“Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.”

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”

“As for fame, fame felt like nothing. Fame was not a sensation like love or hunger or loneliness, welling from within and invisible to the outside eye. It was rather entirely external, coming from the minds of others. It existed in the way people looked at him or behaved towards him. In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have.”

“Hope comes not from the people around you, but from yourself.”

“People have this dream of being unreachable. They build a name for themselves and then finally fulfill their dream of "being more important." Which just shows they were born from down below. Because when you're born from up above, your dreams have nowhere to go but downwards! And you dream of doing things in order to meet people, to know them, to understand the smallest importances!”

“What's important is being attentive. Staying calm, being alert to things around you.”