To taste it once is to taste it forever --- life or death. Whichever way the coin flips is right, so long as you hold no stakes.

I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object.

Ik kwam er achter dat ik er mijn hele leven heus niet naar had verlang om te leven - als wat anderen doen tenminste leven genoemd kan worden - maar wel om mezelf te kunnen uitdrukken.

Life has to be given a meaning, because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.

That is to say, he had no theory at all, except to penetrate to the very essence of things and, in the light of each fresh revelation to so live his life that there would be a minimum of discord between the truths which were revealed to him and the exemplification of these truths in action.