Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

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

My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.

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.

I am tired of myself in every way. All things, deep down to the secret of their roots, are stained by the color of my weariness.

Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions.

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.