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

I have heard unsavory rumors about you and the umbrella-maker's daughter

He felt so lost, he said later, that the familiar studio felt like a haunted valley deep in the mountains, with the smell of rotting leaves, the spray of a waterfall, the sour fumes of fruit stashed away by a monkey; even the dim glow of the master's oil lamp on its tripod looked to him like misty moonlight in the hills.

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.

Isn't there someone kind enough to come strangle me in my sleep?

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

Yes -- or rather, it's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.