In the ordinary jumble of my literary drawer, I sometimes find texts I wrote ten, fifteen, or even more years ago. And many of them seem to me written by a stranger: I simply do not recognize myself in them. There was a person who wrote them, and it was I. I experienced them, but it was in another life, from which I just woke up, as if from someone else's dream.
Fernando PessoaI never had anyone I could call โMasterโ. 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
Fernando PessoaIf, on thinking this, I look up to see if reality can quench my thirst, I see inexpressive facades, inexpressive faces, inexpressive gestures. Stones, bodies, ideas - all dead. All movements are one great standstill. Nothing means anything to me, not because it's unfamiliar but because I don't know what it is. The world has slipped away. And in the bottom of my soul - as the only reality of this moment - there's an intense and invisible grief, a sadness like the sound of someone crying in a dark room.
Fernando PessoaWalking on these streets, until the night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have. By day theyโre full of meaningless activity; by night, theyโre full of meaningless lack of it. By day I am nothing, and by night I am I. There is no difference between me and these streets, save they being streets and I a soul, which perhaps is irrelevant when we consider the essence of things
Fernando Pessoa