“My blood is too thick for California: I have never been able to properly explain myself in this climate.”

“I would have liked to have tried explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow.”

“I dreamed vaguely of killing myself to wipe out at least one of these superfluous lives. But even my death would have been In the way. In the way, my corpse, my blood on these stones, between these plants, at the back of this smiling garden. And the decomposed flesh would have been In the way in the earth which would receive my bones, at last, cleaned, stripped, peeled, proper and clean as teeth, it would have been In the way: I was In the way for eternity.”

“Perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I've never been able to start or finish anything.”

“It is written in my life-blood, such that it is, thick or thin; and I can no other.”

“Oh, gentlemen, perhaps I really regard myself as an intelligent man only because throughout my entire life I’ve never been able to start or finish anything.”