In theory we understand people, but in practice we can't put up with them, I thought, deal with them for the most part reluctantly and always treat them from our point of view. We should observe and treat people not from our point of view but from all angles, I thought, associate with them in such a way that we can say we associate with them so to speak in a completely unbiased way, which however isn't possible, since we actually are always biased against everybody.

One day you're cut off, at the very start you're cut off and can't go back, the language you learn and the whole business of walking and all the rest is for the sake of the single thought, how to get back again.

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.

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

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

Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.

All my life I have had the utmost admiration for suicides. I have always considered them superior to me in every way.