487 quotes
I want to proclaim a truth that would forever exile me from among the living. I know only the conditions but not the words that would allow me to formulate it.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
If attachment is an evil, we must look for its cause in the scandal of birth, for to be born is to be attached. Detachment then should apply itself to getting rid of the traces of this scandal, the most serious and intolerable of all.
A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It's not easy to be on the wrong foot with life
The Book of Delusions (1936)
An aphorism? Fire without flames. Understandable that no one tries to warm himself at it.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
I believe in the salvation of humanity, in the future of cyanide . . .
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Lucidity is not necessarily compatible with life, actually not at all.
Nothing surpasses the pleasures of idleness: even if the end of the world were to come, I would not leave my bed at an ungodly hour.
A Short History of Decay (1949)
I get along quite well with someone only when he is at his lowest point and has neither the desire nor the strength to restore his habitual illusions.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
One of the biggest paradoxes of our world: memories vanish when we want to remember, but fix themselves permanently in the mind when we want to forget.
On the Heights of Despair (1934)
Get hold of yourself, be confident once more, don't forget that it is not given to just anyone to have idolized discouragement without succumbing to it.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
"I am like a broken puppet whose eyes have fallen inside." This remark of a mental patient weighs more heavily than a whole stack of works on introspection.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
The Creation was the first act of sabotage.
All Gall Is Divided (1952)
Only those moments count when the desire to remain by yourself is so powerful that you'd prefer to blow your brains out than to exchange a word with someone.
The New Gods (1969)
If instead of expanding you, putting you in a state of energetic euphoria, your ordeals depress and embitter you, you can be sure you have no spiritual vocation.
The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
If a man has not, by the time he is 30, yielded to the fascination of every form of extremism, I don't know if he is to be admired or scorned — a saint or a corpse.
History and Utopia (1960)
To repeat to yourself a thousand times a day: 'Nothing on Earth has any worth,' to keep finding yourself at the same point, to circle stupidly as a top, eternally...
A Short History of Decay (1949)
When you get over an infatuation, to fall for someone ever again seems so inconceivable that you imagine no one, not even a bug, that is not mired in disappointment.
Anathemas and Admirations (1987)
To fear is to die every minute.
Tears and Saints (1937)
What to think of other people? I ask myself this question each time I make a new acquaintance. So strange does it seem to me that we exist, and that we consent to exist.
Drawn and Quartered (1983)
Each of us must pay for the slightest damage he inflicts upon a universe created for indifference and stagnation, sooner or later, he will regret not having left it intact.
History and Utopia (1960)