I began to enjoy my own generosity; I felt the pleasure of pleasing others, especially as this was accompanied by money-power. I was paying for them; they were grateful, they had to be; and they could no longer see me as a failure.

If you get depressed, you can be stuck for months; if you have an analyst, you at least have a chance of getting out of it faster.

If you want something badly enough, you make arrangements. If you don't want it badly enough, you make excuses.

At the same time, you have to find the right distance between people. Too close, and they overwhelm you, too far and they abandon you. How to hold them in the right relation?

I don't want to be loved. I want to be desired. Love is safety, but desire is foul.

Fundamentalism is dictatorship of the mind

If you never left anything or anyone there would be no room for the new. Naturally, to move on is an infidelity -- to others, to the past, to old notions of oneself. Perhaps every day should contain at least one essential infidelity or necessary betrayal. It would be an optimistic, hopeful act, guaranteeing belief in the future -- a declaration that things can be not only different but better.