There is a diabolical streak in me, a troublesome and inexplicable perversity.

Children, by nature, are keen, passionate and curious. What was referred to as laziness is often merely an awakening of sensitivity, a psychological inability to submit to certain absurd duties, and a natural result of the distorted, unbalanced education given to them. This laziness, which leads to an insuperable reluctance to learn, is, contrary to appearances, sometimes proof of intellectual superiority and a condemnation of the teacher.

Come now, don't make such a funeral face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy.

You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation.

Desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual ideal of hell and its horror.

To take something from a person and keep it for oneself: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it can be doubled without danger.

‎The greatest danger of a terrorist's bomb is in the explosion of stupidity that it provokes.