The anguish of the neurotic individual is the same as that of the saint. The neurotic, the saint are engaged in the same battle. Their blood flows from similar wounds. But the first one gasps and the other one gives.

The truth is paradoxical to the extent of being exactly contrary to the usual perception.

Incredible nervous state, trepidation beyond words: to be this much in love is to be sick (and I love to be sick).

It seems impossible, in fact, to judge the eye using any word other than seductive, since nothing is more attractive in the bodies of animals and men. But extreme seductiveness is probably at the boundary of horror.

Life has always taken place in a tumult without apparent cohesion, but it only finds its grandeur and its reality in ecstasy and in ecstatic love.

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit; to become delightful, happiness must be tainted with poison.

Thought does not ennoble us and neither does it differentiate humans from other animals.