"

Look on me! There is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age,
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of wither’d or of broken hearts;

For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number’d in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Look upon me! for even of all these things
Have I partaken; and of all these things,
One were enough; then wonder not that I
Am what I am, but that I ever was,
Or, having been, that I am still on this earth.

"

"For life itself is no solution, life has no kind of existence which is chosen, consented to, and self-determined. It is a mere series of hungers and adverse forces, of petty contradictions which succeed or miscarry according to the circumstances of an odious gamble."

"We are the fools of time and terror: Days
Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die."

"Thinks’t thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs; mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable,
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,
Innumerable atoms; and one desert,
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness."

"I wanted to die; I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for."

"A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

"

“Not particularily, but—” And she went on with a piteous air: “I was thinking of the child. It was Gomez who wanted it done, you know. And when he wanted anything in those days—But it was horrible, I would never—if he went down on his knees to me now, I would never have it done again.” She looked at Mathieu with agonized eyes.

“They gave me a little parcel after the operation, and they said to me: ‘You can throw that down a drain.’ Down a drain! Like a dead rat! Mathieu,” she said, gripping his arm, “you don’t realize what you’re going to do.”

“And when you bring a child into the world, do you realize what you’re going to do?” asked Mathieu wrathfully.

A child: another conciousness, a little center-point of light that would flutter round and round, dashing against the walls, and never be able to escape.

"

"What would he have to live for? What could be his aim? What should he strive for? To live in order to exist? But he had been ready a thousand times before to sacrifice his existence for an idea, a hope, even for a fancy. Mere existence had always meant little to him; he had always desired more."

"…the world, as you know, is empty. I know I’ve said this before, but have you ever thought about it carefully? Because to assume for those reasons that we are permitted to do anything we want is sloppy thinking. As a matter of fact, we are the ones who do the permitting. Teachers, schools, fathers, society—we permit all those garbage heaps. And not because we’re powerless either. Permitting is our special privilege and if we felt any pity at all we wouldn’t be able to permit this ruthlessly. What it amounts to is that we are constantly permitting unpermissible things…"

"They don’t even know the definition of danger. They think danger means something physical, getting scratched and a little blood running and the newspapers making a big fuss. Well, that hasn’t got anything to do with it. Real danger is nothing more than just living. Of course, living is merely the chaos of existence, but more than that it’s a crazy mixed-up business of dismantling existence instant by instant to the point where the original chaos is restored, and taking strength from the uncertainty and the fear that chaos brings to re-create existence instant by instant. You won’t find another job as dangerous as that. There isn’t any fear in existence itself, or any uncertainty, but living creates it. And society is basically meaningless, a Roman mixed bath. And school, school is just society in miniature: that’s why we’re always being ordered around. A bunch of blind men tell us what to do, tear our unlimited ability to shreds."

"Man is a self-conscious Nothing."

"Male gender identity is defined by (active) conquest … In externalizing the source of their self-esteem, they surrender all emotional independence. (Conquest requires two parties, after all.) A man cannot feel like a man without a partner, corporation, team. Manhood is a game played on the terrain of opposites. It thus follows that male sense of self disintegrates when the Other is absent."

"Though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find “the sword wearing out the scabbard,” though I have but just turned the corner of twenty nine."

"

So, we’ll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

"