I had decided to allow no room in the universe for something which shamed and frightened me. I succeeded very well - by not looking at the universe, by not looking at myself, by remaining, in effect, in constant motion.
Though he [Jaques] wanted to trust everybody, he was incapable of trusting a living soul; to make up for this, he threw his money away on people; inevitably, then, he was abused. Then he buttoned his wallet, locked his door, and retired into that strong self-pity which was, perhaps, the only thing he had which really belonged to him.
Nobody can stay in the garden of Eden...Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually reurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
Tell me, what is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. What are they waiting for?
[to be continued]