The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.

The only way to escape the abyss is to look at it, gauge it, sound it out and descend into it.

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.

Perfect behaviour is born of complete indifference.

At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.

One must look for one thing only, to find many.

You've got to understand life, understand it when you're young.