The value of things is not the time they last, but the intensity with which they occur. That is why there are unforgettable moments and unique people!

That is my morality or my metaphysics or me myself: a passer-by in everything, even my own soul. I belong to nothing, I desire nothing, I am nothing except an abstract centre of impersonal sensations, a sentient mirror fallen from the wall but still turned to reflect the diversity of the world.

Nobody appropriates novelties as readily as the Portuguese.

Between me and life is a faint glass. No matter how sharply I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.

The essence of what I desire is simply this: to sleep away life.

Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to renunciation. Better to dream than to be.

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.