Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

To write books is to have a certain relation with original sin. For what is a book if not a loss of innocence, an act of aggression, a repetition of our Fall?

The mind is the result of the torments the flesh undergoes or inflicts upon itself.

Losing love is so rich a philosophical ordeal that it makes a hairdresser into a rival of Socrates.

We must learn how to explode! Any disease is healthier than the one provoked by a hoarded rage.

Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.

How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.