We don't exist unless we are deeply and sensually in touch with that which can be touched but not known.

You don't want to love - your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved. You aren't positive, you're negative. You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you've got a shortage somewhere.

Tragedy is like strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.

Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did not count his work, anyone could have done it. What had he known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife. Curious, that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still his fulfillment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.

Now go away then, and leave me alone. I don't want any more of your meretricious persiflage.

Death is the only pure, beautiful conclusion of a great passion.

[U]nless a woman is held, by man, safe within the bounds of belief, she becomes inevitably a destructive force.