“No one reads to know, but to forget”

“Read day and night, devour books—these sleeping pills—not to know but to forget! Through books you can retrace your way back to the origins of spleen, discarding history and its illusions.”

“I know that my birth is fortuitous, a laughable accident, and yet, as soon as I forget myself, I behave as if it were a capital event, indispensable to the progress and equilibrium of the world.”

“God does not read.”

“I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.”

“The dead center of existence: when it is all the same to you whether you read a newspaper article or think about God.”

“If there was a common, even official form of killing oneself, suicide would be much easier and much more frequent. But since to be done with it all we must find our own way, we waste so much time meditating on trifles that we forget what is essential.”