Last year nothing happened The year before nothing happened And the year before that nothing happened.

To be a friend of the weak-that is the artist's point of departure as well as his ultimate goal.

Addiction is perhaps a sickness of the spirit.

Victims. Victims of a transitional period of morality. That is what we both certainly are.

What is society but an individual? [] The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.

I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.