"Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed."

"Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own."

"There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first."

"The really clever thing, in affairs of this sort, is not to win a woman already desired by everyone, but to discover such a prize while she is still unknown."

"A man succeeds in completing a work only when his qualities transcend that work."

"Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace."

"We must never say, even in fun, that we are disheartened, because someone might take us at our word."

"We do not remember days, we remember moments."

"Anchorites used to ill-treat themselves in the way they did, so that the common people would not begrudge them the beatitude they would enjoy in heaven."

"A dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end."

"Generations do not age. Every youth of any period, any civilization, has the same possibilities as always."

"If it were possible to have a life absolutely free from every feeling of sin, what a terrifying vacuum it would be!"

"In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life. The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities."

"Things which cost nothing are those which cost the most. Why? Because they cost us the effort of understanding that they are free."

"Love is the cheapest of religions."

"We want Realism's wealth of experience and Symbolism's depth of feeling. All art is a problem of balance between two opposites."

"War makes men barbarous because, to take part in it, one must harden oneself against all regret, all appreciation of delicacy and sensitive values. One must live as if those values did not exist, and when the war is over one has lost the resilience to return to those values."

"The whole problem of life, then, is this: how to break out of one's own loneliness, how to communicate with others."

"No matter how much a young man likes to think for himself, he is always trying to model himself on some abstract pattern largely derived from the example of the world around him. And a man, no matter how conservative, shows his own worth by his personal deviation from that pattern."

"The most banal thing, discovered in ourselves, becomes intensely interesting. It is no longer an abstract banality, but an amazing co-ordination between reality and our own individuality."

"Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long."

"When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves."

"What we desire is not to possess a woman, but to be the only one to possess her."

"I spent the whole evening sitting before a mirror to keep myself company."

"Misfortunes cannot suffice to make a fool into an intelligent man."

"Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality."

"It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it."

"It is stupid to grieve for the loss of a girl friend: you might never have met her, so you can do without her."

"You cannot insult a man more atrociously than by refusing to believe he is suffering."

"The man of action is not the headstrong fool who rushes into danger with no thought for himself, but the man who puts into practice the things he knows."

"All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition."

"Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone."

"We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God."

"All our "most sacred affections" are merely prosaic habit."

"Death is repose, but the thought of death disturbs all repose."

"The only reason why we are always thinking of our own ego is that we have to live with it more continuously than with anyone else's."

"Since God could have created a freedom in which there could be no evil (i.e., a state when men were happy and free and certain not to sin), it follows that He wished evil to exist. But evil offends Him. A commonplace case of masochism."

"When one has made a mistake, one says. "Another time I shall know what to do," when one should say is: "I already know what I shall really do another time.""

"No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide."

"To avenge a wrong done to you, is to rob yourself of the comfort of crying out against the injustice of it."

"Those philosophers who believe in the absolute logic of truth have never had to discuss it on close terms with a woman."

"Because, to despise money, one must have plenty of it."

"A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience."

"Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be "lifelong"? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?"

"La difficoltà di commettere suicidio sta in questo: è un atto di ambizione che si può commettere solo quando si sia superata ogni ambizione."

"The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies. The fearful thing about it is that, not knowing what truth may be, we can still recognize lies."

"This much is certain: you can have anything in life except a wife to call you "her man." And till now all your life was based on that hope."

"It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point."

"A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself."

"Every woman longs for a man friend to confide in, to fill the empty hours when the one she loves is away; she insists that this friend does not affect her love for the absent one; she takes offense if he makes any demand that might interfere with her love; but if that friend grows cautious and keeps his words and glances under control, with the sole object of saving himself further suffering, then the woman — any woman — immediately does her best to increase her hold upon him so that she can watch him suffer. And she does not even realize she is doing it. Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared. It is amazing that the woman you love may tell you her days are empty and unbearable, but yet she has no wish to know what yours are like.* // 17th November 1937."