In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

Let me remind you of the old maxim: people under suspicion are better moving than at rest, since at rest they may be sitting in the balance without knowing it, being weighed together with their sins.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

The meaning of life is that it stops.