I've Always Been An Ironic Dreamer, Unfaithful

The Idea Of Any Social Obligation ... Just The Idea Of It Embarasses My Thoughts For A Day, And Sometimes It's Since The Day Before That I Worry, And Don't Sleep Well, And The Real Affair, When It Happens, Is Absolutely Insignificant And Justifies Nothing; And The Case Repeats Itself And I Never Learn To Learn.

Changing From The Ghosts Of Faith To The Spectres Of Reason Is Just Changing Cells.

A Great Emotion Is Too Selfish ; It Takes Into Itself All The Blood Of The Spirit, And The Congestion Leaves The Hands Too Cold To Write. Three Sorts Of Emotion Produce Great Poetry - Strong But Quick Emotions, Seized Upon For Art As Soon As They Have Passed, But Not Before They Have Passed ; Strong And Deep Emotions In Their Remembrance Along Time After ; And False Emotions, That Is To Say, Emotions Felt In The Intellect. Not Insincerity, But A Translated Sincerity, Is The Basis Of All Art.

I've Always Been An Ironic Dreamer, Unfaithful To My Inner Promises. Like A Complete Outsider, A Casual Observer Of Whom I Thought I Was, I've Always Enjoyed Watching My Daydreams Go Down In Defeat. I Was Never Convinced Of What I Believed In. I Filled My Hands With Sand, Called It Gold, And Opened Them Up To Let It Slide Through. Words Were My Only Truth. When The Right Words Were Said, All Was Done; The Rest Was The Sand That Had Always Been.

Through An Experience That Simultaneously Involved My Sensibility And Intelligence, I Realized Early On That The Imaginative Life, However Morbid It Might Seem, Is The One That Suits Temperaments Like Mine. The Fictions Of My Imagination (as It Later Developed) May Weary Me, But They Don't Hurt Or Humiliate. Impossible Lovers Can't Cheat On Us, Or Smile At Us Falsely, Or Be Calculating In Their Caresses. They Never Forsake Us, And They Don't Die Or Disappear. --the Book Of Disquiet