“Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!”

“Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.”

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.”

“I never had anyone I could call “Master”. No Christ died for me. No Buddha showed me the right path. In the depths of my dreams no Apollo or Athena appeared to me to enlighten my soul”

“AutopsychographyThe poet is a man who feignsAnd feigns so thoroughly, at lastHe manages to feign as painThe pain he really feels,And those who read what once he wroteFeel clearly, in the pain they read,Neither of the pains he felt,Only a pain they cannot sense.And thus, around its jolting trackThere runs, to keep our reason busy,The circling clockwork train of oursThat men agree to call a heart.”

“May I at least carry, to the boundless possibility contained in the abyss of everything, the glory of my disillusion like that of a great dream, and the splendor of not believing like a banner of defeat; a banner in feeble hands, but still and all a banner, dragged through mud and the blood of the weak but raised high for who knows what reason - whether in defiance, or as a challenge, or in mere desperation - as we vanish into quicksand. No one knows for what reason, because no one knows anything, and the sand swallows those with banners as it swallows those without. And the sand covers everything: my life, my prose, my eternity. I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.”

“Let us sculpt in hopeless silence all our dreams of speaking.”