Ah, what a morning this is, awakening me to life's stupidity. [98 - Zenith trans.]

I was a poet animated by philosophy, not a philosopher with poetic faculties.

To create, I destroyed myself; I made myself external to such a degree within myself that within myself I do not exist except in an external fashion. I am the living setting in which several actors make entrances, putting on several different plays.

It's in an inland sea that the river of my life ended.

I never had anyone I could call “Master”. No Christ died for me. No Buddha showed me the right path. In the depths of my dreams no Apollo or Athena appeared to me to enlighten my soul

Tomorrow I too – this feeling and thinking soul, the universe I am to myself – yes, tomorrow I too will be someone who no longer walks these streets, someone others will evoke with a vague: 'I wonder what's become of him?” And everything I do, everything I feel, everything I experience, will be just one less passer-by on the daily streets of some city or other.

My past is everything I failed to be.