"I dwell in my despair—
And live—and live forever."

"From the moment that man believes neither in God nor in immortal life, he becomes “responsible for everything alive, for everything that, born of suffering, is condemned to suffer from life.” It is he, and he alone, who must discover law and order. Then the time of exile begins, the endless search for justification, the aimless nostalgia, “the most painful, the most heartbreaking question, that of the heart which asks itself: where can I feel at home?"

"My beerdrunk soul is sadder than all the dead Christmas trees of the world."

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad."

"I realize that, while often happy and often cheerful, I am always sad."

"There can be no such thing as living through the storm in a state of frenzy and then liberating pent-up emotions in a work of art as an alternative to suicide. How true that is can be seen from the fact that artists who really have killed themselves because of some tragedy that happened to them are usually trivial songsters, lovers of sensation, who never, in their lyrical effusions, even hint at the deep cancer that is gnawing them. From which one learns that the only way to escape from the abyss is to look at it, measure it, sound its depths and go down into it."

"The whole world can be divided into those who write and those who do not write. These who write represent despair, and those who read disapprove of it and believe that they have a superior wisdom—and yet, if they were able to write, they would write the same thing. Basically they are all equally despairing, but when one does not have the opportunity to become important with his despair, then it is hardly worth the trouble to despair and show it. Is this what it is to have conquered despair?"

"My despair reached such a height that I could do nothing but think of the horrible condition in which I found myself. I saw only one thing — death. Everything else was a lie."