“What does the corpse care who was right and who was wrong?”

“He who praises you for what you lack wishes to take from you what you have.”

“A BILL OF ASSERTIVE RIGHTSI: You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.II: You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior.III: You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.IV: You have the right to change your mind.V: You have the right to make mistakes—and be responsible for them.VI: You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”VII: You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.VIII: You have the right to be illogical in making decisions. IX: You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”X: You have the right to say, “I don’t care.”YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY NO, WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY”

“See what's inside a drop of water. The whole seed of the universe. Come, come. See what's inside a drop of blood. The composition of life. It's all there. Hate as well. We approach the mystery of life, but it's impossible to understand the mystery of hate. The kind of hate that causes people not only to kill, but to want to erase you from the census of births. I have to concentrate on that mystery. Read everything there is. It has to be in a drop of blood. It has to have its chemistry.”

“To begin cooking duck at one in the morning is one of the finest acts of madness that can be undertaken by a human being who is not mad.”

“Anyway, what does "wrong" mean? Who decides what's wrong and what's right?”

“The owner of the Agut d'Avignon had the air of a 1920s dandy who had ruined himself with one mad night of gambling at baccarat and had only been saved by this restaurant, which he seemed to cherish as if it were his wife or a good fountain pen.”