Everything turns on pain; the rest is accessory, even nonexistent, for we remember only what hurts. Painful sensations being the only real ones, it is virtually useless to experience others.

Transmitting one's flaws [through procreation] to someone else is a crime. I could never consent to give life to someone who would inherent my ailments.

The literary man? An indiscreet man, who devaluates his miseries, divulges them, tells them like so many beads: immodesty-the sideshow of second thoughts-is his rule; he offers himself.

How good would it be if one could die by throwing oneself into an infinite void.

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods.

Everything turns on pain; the rest is accessory, even nonexistent, for we remember only what hurts. Painful sensations being the only real ones, it is virtually useless to experience others.