“...despair can hold the most intense sorts of pleasure when one is strongly conscious of the hopelessness of one's position...”

“It's in despair that you find the sharpest pleasures, particularly when you are most acutely aware of the hopelessness of your position.”

“In despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one's position.”

“The pleasure of despair. But then, it is in despair that we find the most acute pleasure, especially when we are aware of the hopelessness of the situation......everything is a mess in which it is impossible to tell what's what, but that despite this impossibility and deception it still hurts you, and the less you can understand, the more it hurts.”

“It's precisely in despair that you find the most intense pleasure, especially if you are already powerfully conscious of the hopelessness of your predicament.”

“But it's precisely in this cold, loathsome half-despair, half-belief, in this deliberate burying of yourself underground for forty years out of sheer pain, in this assiduously constructed, and yet somewhat dubious hopelessness, in all this poision of unfulfilled desires turned inward, this fever of vacillations, of resolutions adopted for eternity, and of repentances a moment later that you find the very essence of that strange, sharp pleasure.”

“ in many strong people there seems to be a sort of natural need--to find someone or something to bow down to”