I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking.

I exist, that is all, and I find it nauseating.

One can ask why the I has to appear in the cogito {Descartes’ argument “I think therefore I am.}, since the cogito, if used rightly, is the awareness of pure consciousness, not directed at any fact or action. In fact the I is not necessary here, since it is never united directly to consciousness. One can even imagine a pure and self-aware consciousness which thinks of itself as impersonal spontaneity.

When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all.

A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.