Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing.

To live is to play at the meaning of life...The upshot of this . . . is that it teaches us once and for all that childlike foolishness is the calling of mature men.

Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt.

What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself.

Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem.

Horror alone brings peace of mind.

If everyone lives roughly the same lies about the same thing, there is no one to call them liars. They jointly establish their own sanity and themselves normal.