“All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.”

“The cast of Hamlet had not moved much. They had that haunted yet hopeful look in their eyes, like the ones you see in photographs of people crammed into steerage compartments, traveling to some new, unknown land.”

“I was aware now, as ever, that between all people there were First Times You See Them and Last Times you See Them. ”

“I travelled among unknown menin lands beyond the sea . . .”

“My greatest fear is time wasted—a life spent. My greatest fear is passing away from this world without leaving a lasting impact.”

“Don't speak to me about nature. I have no love for her. I feel and see only death. Even your beauty wilts and perishes before my eyes with the decay of time. I feel it building in momentum each passing day with sickening acceleration. It will not slow, and everything is lost within its great hunger. It makes all that is now a pleasure a bitter pain, knowing it is all to be lost in the end.”