If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.

The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with his self. Suffering is the university of ego-centrism.

Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.

Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love.

He Kept recalling her lying on his bed; she reminded him of no one in his former life.

On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.