What uneasiness lies in being loved.

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

At times everything grows misty and dark before my eyes, and I feel that the strength of my whole body is oozing away through my finger tips.

The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.

The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness

I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.

I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.