Then what's a synonym for woman? Entrails. You're not very poetic, are you? Well, then, what's the antonym for entrails? Milk.

I was afraid to board a streetcar because of the conductor; I was afraid to enter the Kabuki Theater for fear of the usherettes standing along the sides of the red-carpeted staircase at the main entrance; I was afraid to go into a restaurant because I was intimidated by the waiters furtively hovering behind me waiting for my plate to be emptied.

What is society but an individual? The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.

Now even if I die, no one will be so grieved as to do himself bodily harm.

I soon came to understand that drink, tobacco and prostitutes were all great means if dissipating (even for a few moments) my dread for human beings. I came even to feel that if I had to sell every last possession to obtain these means of escape, it would be well worth it.

I also have the impression that many women have been able, instinctively, to sniff out this loneliness of mine, which I confided to no one, and this in later years was to become one of the causes of my being taken advantage of.

I have no desire for others to take it on themselves to analyze my thoughts. I am without thoughts. I have never, not even once, acted on the basis of any doctrine or philosophy.I am convinced that those people whom the world considers good and respects are all liars and fakes. I do not trust the world.

I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.

Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer Nothing. The thought went through my mind that it didn't make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.

I yearned for everything long gone.

It would seem that the more irresponsible and crafty one is, the more likely one is to have a talent for storytelling.

And I was incapable of living all by myself in those lodgings where I didn't know a soul. It terrified me to sit by myself quietly in my room. I felt frightened, as if I might be set upon or struck by someone at any moment.

A true artist is an ugly man.

I felt as though the vessel if my suffering had become empty, as if nothing could interest me now. I had lost even the ability to suffer.

Is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realize this sad truth throughout a lifetime, weep when they read in the newspapers about his death?

Mornings are grey. Always the same. Absolutely empty.

The true substance of love lies in the act of howling words of love with a desperation of a man jumping into the high seas.

I was cursed by the unhappy peculiarity that the more I feared people the more I was liked, and the more I was liked the more I feared them -- a process which eventually compelled me to run away from everybody.

This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution.

I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.