My Number Is 174517; We Have Been

I Have Many Times Been Praised For My Lack Of Animosity Towards The Germans. It's Not A Philosophical Virtue. It's A Habit Of Having My Second Reactions Before The First.

Perhaps Kafka Laughed When He Told Stories [. . . ] Because One Isn't Always Equal To Oneself.

The Trade Of Chemist (fortified, In My Case, By The Experience Of Auschwitz), Teaches You To Overcome, Indeed To Ignore, Certain Revulsions That Are Neither Necessary Or Congenital: Matter Is Matter, Neither Noble Nor Vile, Infinitely Transformable, And Its Proximate Origin Is Of No Importance Whatsoever. Nitrogen Is Nitrogen, It Passes Miraculously From The Air Into Plants, From These Into Animals, And From Animals Into Us; When Its Function In Our Body Is Exhausted, We Eliminate It, But It Still Remains Nitrogen, Aseptic, Innocent.

For He Who Loses All Often Easily Loses Himself.

I Beg The Reader Not To Go In Search Of Messages. It Is A Term That I Detest Because It Distresses Me Greatly, For It Forces On Me Clothes That Are Not Mine, Which In Fact Belong To A Human Type That I Distrust; The Prophet, The Soothsayer, The Seer. I Am None Of These; I'm A Normal Man With A Good Memory Who Fell Into A Maelstrom And Got Out Of It More By Luck Than By Virtue, And Who From That Time On Has Preserved A Certain Curiosity About Maelstroms Large And Small, Metaphorical And Actual.