Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.

The man who cannot live with charity, sharing other men's pain, is punished by feeling his own with intolerable anguish.

To choose a hardship for ourselves is our only defense against that hardship. This is what is meant by accepting suffering. Those who, by their very nature, can suffer completely, utterly, have an advantage. That is how we can disarm the power of suffering, make it our own creation, our own choice; submit to it. A justification for suicide.

Literature is a defense against the attacks of life. It says to life: You can't deceive me. I know your habits, foresee and enjoy watching all your reactions, and steal your secret by involving you in cunning obstructions that halt your normal flow.

One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will.

No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in love with him first.