Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.

I've always been suspicious of collective truths.

Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.

Dreams are reality at its most profound, and what you invent is truth because invention, by its nature, can't be a lie.

No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.

To become conscious of what is horrifying and to laugh at it is to become master of that which is horrifying

Banality is a symptom of non-communication. Men hide behind their cliches.