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

For an artist to do creative work, he needs at once physical health and some physiomental ill health. He needs both serenity and gloom.

..and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man’s only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too; that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin.

There is no virtue in curiosity. In fact, it might be the most immoral desire a man can possess.

His conviction of having no purpose in life other than to act as a distillation of poison was part of the ego of an eighteen-year-old. He had resolved that his beautiful white hands would never be soiled or calloused. He wanted to be like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind. The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions--gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose.

Quite possibly, what I call happiness may coincide with what others call the moment of imminent danger

Beyond doubt, there was a certain splendor in pain, which bore a deep affinity to the splendor that lies hidden within strength.