It isn't ever the world you fight. Always, always, it's yourself.

when ... I've thought of madness, it seems most easily explained to me as poetry in action. A life of symbol rather than reality. On paper one can understand Gulliver, or Kafka, or Dante. But let a man go about behaving as if he were a giant or a midget, or caught in a cosmic plot directed at himself, or in heaven or hell, and we feel horror - we want to disavow him to proclaim him as far removed as possible from ourselves.

Twilight was the worst hour, because it was the hour of indecision.

It isn't ever the world you fight. Always, always, it's yourself.

when anybody talks to me as if I hadn't good sense, I'm immediately tempted to act as if I hadn't. Like sticking beans up your nose. ... you know the story about the mother who said to her children the last thing before she went out, Now be sure not to stick beans up your nose? Naturally, they would never have thought of it if she hadn't put the idea into their heads.

What you were yesterday is fixed for always, making its mark on what you are today, what you will be tomorrow.