“At the very least, if I have not - yet- chosen to end your life, I refuse to allow any of my kin to forever deprive me of my prerogative to do so.”

“Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.”

“If this is not the end of oblivion, then I shall live forever as if my life were to end on this very day~”

“Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.”

“I only regret that everybody wants to deprive me of the journal, which is the only steadfast friend I have, the only one which makes my life bearable, because my happiness with human beings is so precarious, my confiding moods rare, and the least sign of non-interest is enough to silence me. In the journal I am at ease.”

“I would have chosen any other than this for my prison. A rhinoceros is as ugly as a human being, and it too is going to die, but at least it never thinks that it is beautiful.”