I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.

..he understood far more deeply than anyone else the loneliness that lurked beneath his jaunty mask.

A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.

I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed.

As you can imagine, those who had fallen this far had been so worn down by their tortures in the seven other hells that they no longer had the strength to cry out.

I may be a lunatic, but then, wasn't my lunacy caused by a monster that lurks at the bottom of every human mind? Those who call me a madman and spurn me may become lunatics tomorrow. They harbor the same monster.

No matter how accomplished one might be in any branch of learning or art, one would have to be condemned to hell, if on where not endowed with th five cardinal virtues of Confucius-benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom and fidelity