I thought, “I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.

The weak fear happiness itself.

Labeled a delinquent. That's the only kind of label I want to be crucified under.

As for love . . . no, having once written that word I can write nothing more.

It isn't that I dislike artists, but I can't stand anyone who puts on those ponderous airs of a man of character.

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.

As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.