I distrust the incommunicable; it is the source of all violence

But [your crime] will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride.

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man's resources?

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.