“Don't say mourning. It's too psychoanalytic. I'm not mourning. I'm suffering.”

“Like love, mourning affects the world—and the worldly—with unreality, with importunity. I resist the world, I suffer from what it demands of me, from its demands. The world increases my sadness, my dryness, my confusion, my irritation, etc. The world depresses me.”

“Isn’t the most sensitive point of this mourning the fact that I must lose a language — the amorous language? No more ‘I love you’s.”

“I transform "Work" in its analytic meaning (the Work of Mourning, the Dream-Work) into the real "Work" - of writing.) for: the "Work" by which (it is said) we emerge from the great crises (love, grief) cannot be liquidated hastily: for me, it is accomplished only in and by writing.”

“What affects me most powerfully: mourning in layers—a kind of sclerosis.[Which means: no depth. Layers of surface—or rather, each layer: a totality. Units]”

“Afternoon with Michel, sorting maman’s belongings.Began the day by looking at her photographs.A cruel mourning begins again (but had never ended).To begin again without resting. Sisyphus.”

“Mourning. At the death of the loved being, acute phase of narcissism: one emerges from sickness, from servitude. Then, gradually, freedom takes on a leaden hue, desolation settles in, narcissism gives way to a sad egoism, an absence of generosity.”