Every gesture is a revolutionary act.
Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I’d languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps.
To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.
We are two abysses – a well staring at the sky.
But my sadness is comforting Because it’s right and natural And because it’s what the soul should feel When it already thinks it exists And the hand pick flowers And the soul takes no notice.
To be great, be whole; Exclude nothing, exaggerate nothing that is not you. Be whole in everything. Put all you are Into the smallest thing you do. So, in each lake, the moon shines with splendor Because it blooms up above.
To live strikes me as a metaphysical mistake of matter, a dereliction of inaction.
Time, which grays hair and wrinkles faces, also withers violent affections, and much more quickly.
Success consists in being successful, not in having potential for success. Any wide piece of ground is the potential site of a palace, but there’s no palace till it’s built.
I realize that I was all error and deviation, that I never lived, that I existed only in so far as I filled time with consciousness and thought.
And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.
Everything is theater.
All that I’ve lived I’ve forgotten, as if I’d vaguely heard it. All that I’ll be reminds me of nothing, as if I’d lived and forgotten it.
But do we really live? To live without knowing what life is – is that living?
I look for myself but find no one. I belong to the chrysanthemum hour of bright flowers placed in tall vases. I should make an ornament of my soul.
Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one.
Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn’t what we see but what we are.
It’s been months since I last wrote. I’ve lived in a state of mental slumber, leading the life of someone else. I’ve felt, very often, a vicarious happiness. I haven’t existed. I’ve been someone else. I’ve lived without thinking.
And I have the others in me. Even when I’m far away from them, I am forced to live with them. Even when I’m all alone, crowds surround me. I have no place to flee to, unless I were to flee from myself.
I am the escaped one, After I was born They locked me up inside me But I left. My soul seeks me, Through hills and valley, I hope my soul Never finds me.