The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me — I have no others.

Our greatest pleasure, surely, is in fragments, just as we derive the most pleasure from life if we regard it as a fragment, whereas the whole and the complete and the perfect are basically abhorrent.

everything is ridiculous if one thinks of death

What is ridiculous about human beings, Doctor,' the prince said, 'is actually their total incapacity to be ridiculous

Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.

You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.

The art we need is the art of bearing the unbearable.