There isn't any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it.

It is a common failing of childhood to think that if one makes a hero out of a demon the demon will be satisfied.

Young people get the foolish idea that what is new for them must be new for everybody else too. No matter how unconventional they get, they're just repeating what others before them have done.

...of all the kinds of decay in this world, decadent purity is the most malignant.

Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood.

When people concentrate on the idea of beauty, they are, without realizing it, confronted with the darkest thoughts that exist in this world. That, I suppose, is how human beings are made.

What I wanted was to die among strangers, untroubled, beneath a cloudless sky. And yet my desire differed from the sentiments of that ancient Greek who wanted to die under the brilliant sun. What I wanted was some natural, spontaneous suicide. I wanted a death like that of a fox, not yet well versed in cunning, that walks carelessly along a mountain path and is shot by a hunter because of its own stupidity.