“Last week I was very ill. I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. Which is great, because before I felt like Napoleon. And let me tell you, my clothes were much too large.”

“And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself – so like a brother, really – I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

“This week or last week, I don't really care about it anymore. I write myself this later, I tell myself you let me go.”

“Oh, if only I were young again, I would travel! There's so much of the world I would like to have seen. But I'm too old for that now and too ill to manage the trip. I don't care much for clothes. I'm giving away all my jewelry. At this point in my life, I see all possessions as just more stuff, , as Cara called it. Meaningless! Worse than meaningless. They are distractions.”

“As if this great outburst of anger had purged all my ills, killed all my hopes, I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world- and finding it so much like myself, in fact so fraternal, I realized that I’d been happy, and that I was still happy. For the final consummation and for me to feel less lonely, my last wish was that there should be a crowd of spectators at my execution and that they should greet me with cries of hatred.”

“I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not ever again.”