Beneath a mask of selfish tranquility nothing exists except bitterness and boredom. I am one of those whom suffering has made empty and frivolous: each night in my dreams I pull the scab off a wound; each day, vacuous and habit-ridden, I help it re-form.

Youth is a period of missed opportunities.

Green leaves on a dead tree is our epitaph-green leaves, dear reader, on a dead tree.

There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbours will say.

Promise is the capacity for letting people down.

The English language is like a broad river on whose bank a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up, the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck.

There is no suicide for which all society is not responsible.