I look for myself but find no one. I belong to the chrysanthemum hour of bright flowers placed in tall vases. I should make an ornament of my soul.

Never having discovered qualities in myself which could attract someone else, I could never believe that anyone felt attracted to me.

Without madness what is man But a wholesome beast, Postponed corpse that begets?

We may know that the work we continue to put off doing will be bad. Worse, however, is the work we never do. A work that’s finished is at least finished. It may be poor, but it exists, like the miserable plant in the lone flowerpot of my neighbour who’s crippled. That plant is her happiness, and sometimes it’s even mine. What I write, bad as it is, may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse. That’s enough for me, or it isn’t enough, but it serves some purpose, and so it is with all of life.

Never read a book to the end, nor even in sequence and without skipping.

I am the outskirts of some non-existent town, the long-winded prologue to an unwritten book. I'm nobody, nobody. I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breath life into me.

Everything is worthwhile if the soul is not small.