My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption.

I started to open my mouth and my mouth didn’t work and my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I felt dizzy and excited and scared and insignificant. She was standing in front of me. Right in front of me. Tall and thin, long blond hair like thick ropes of silk, eyes cut from the Arctic. I turned and I walked away without a word. I didn’t look back and I went to my room and I got a strong bottle and I took a strong drink. My heart was still pounding and my hands were still shaking and for the first time in my life it wasn’t because of alcohol or drugs and for the first time in my life alcohol and drugs wouldn’t make it go away.

If you love something set it free, but don’t be surprised if it comes back with herpes.

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.

Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don’t speak bird.

To hear the phrase “our only hope” always makes one anxious, because it means that if the only hope doesn’t work, there is nothing left.

I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He’s taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.

I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.

You mustn’t be afraid of the dark,” he said, gently grasping my arm and making me shudder. “Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a whole new and deeper meaning.

Once I love someone, I love them always.

I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music.

Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.