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.

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

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

Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi. (Death will come and it will have your eyes.)

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

Whatever people may say, the fastidious formal manner of the upper classes is preferable to the slovenly easygoing behaviour of the common middle class. In moments of crisis, the former know how to act, the latter become uncouth brutes.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.