Truly, nothing in the world has so occupied my thoughts as this I, this riddle, the fact I am alive, that I am separated and isolated from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And about nothing in the world do I know less about than me, about Siddhartha!

One must find the source within one's own Self, one must possess it. Everything else was seeking -- a detour, an error.

No, I'm not religious, I'm sorry to say. But I was once and shall be again. There is no time now to be religious." "No time. Does it need time to be religious?" "Oh, yes. To be religious you must have time and, even more, independence of time. You can't be religious in earnest and at the same time live in actual things and still take them seriously, time and money and the Odéon Bar and all that.

As every flower fades and as all youth departs, so life at every stage, so every virtue, so our grasp of truth blooms in its day and may not last forever. Since life may summon us at every age, be ready, heart, for parting, new endeavour, be ready bravely and without remorse to find new light that old ties cannot give. In all beginnings dwells a magic force for guarding us and helping us to live.

How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?

You learned people and artists have, no doubt, all sorts of superior things in your heads; but you're human beings like the rest of us, and we, too, have our dreams and fancies.

At one time I had given much thought to why men were so very rarely capable of living for an ideal. Now I saw that many, no, all men were capable of dying for one.