I avoid literature whenever possible, because whenever possible I avoid myself.

It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad.

Instead of committing suicide, people go to work.

Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.

The art we need is the art of bearing the unbearable.

The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me — I have no others.

People keep a dog and are ruled by this dog, and even Schopenhauer was ruled in the end not by his head, but by his dog. This fact is more depressing than any other.

All my life I have had the utmost admiration for suicides. I have always considered them superior to me in every way.

Arrogance is an utterly appropriate weapon to use against a hostile world, a world in which arrogance is feared and respected, even if, like mine, it's only feigned.

After all, there is nothing but failure.

We have to keep company with supposedly bad characters if we are to survive and not succumb to mental atrophy. People of good character, so called, are the ones who end up boring us to death.

I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller

A loser is one who has "given up on his dreams", so long as you are trying, you haven't lost yet!

the key to human development is building on who you already are

Isn't television glamourous?

Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.

I am, as a European, absolutely shocked by European people. I am also shocked by European nationalist people. They have allowed themselves to be so emasculated so silently.

To err is nature, to rectify error is glory.

I don't really do anything that isn't about writing, and I don't really know who I am if I'm not thinking about writing.

I will always play "Stand Back" anyway. And Prince will always he standing behind me every time I do.