I am not here [in the sanitarium] to write, but to be mad.

The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.

With all my ideas and follies I could one day found a corporate company for the propagation of beautiful but unreliable imaginings.

I contemplated pride and love. All this contemplativeness. When will I be free of it?

That lovely things exist is a lovely thought.

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

Your very eyes. How they have always been for me the command to obey, the inviolable and beautiful commandment. No, no, I'm not telling lies. Your appearance in the doorway! ... You have been my body's health. Whenever I have read a book, it was you I was reading, not the book, you were the book. You were, you were.