“The fancies that take their monstrous birth from the spinelessness and boredom of usurped wealth bring in their wake every defect ... and though rich men's crimes escape the law, protected as they ...”

“...the presence of others has become even more intolerable to me, their conversation most of all. Oh, how it all annoys and exasperates me: their attitudes, their manners, their whole way of being!...”

“(Priests) cheapjack merchants selling paradise”

“It is the sheer ugliness and banality of everyday life which turns my blood to ice and makes me cringe in terror.”

“In the course of my life I have had pre-pubescent ballerinas; emaciated duchesses, dolorous and forever tired, melomaniac and morphine-sodden; bankers' wives with eyes hollower than those of suburb...”

“March 1898What a strange dream I had last night! I wandered in the warm streets of a port, in the low quarter of some Barcelona or Marseille. The streets were noisome, with their freshly-heaped pil...”

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't li...”

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”

“Fear is all in the mind”

“I do not love men: I love what devours them.”

“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

“Part of his mind was screaming, but it was a distant one and easy to ignore.”

“You're too good for this world, and because of that the world will eventually crush you.”

“But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here--and you haven't even died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol...”

“Light makes invisible things manifest.”