"I propose now to do more than this: I have formed a project for telling you my life ... The truth which I intend to set forth here is not particularly scandalous, or is so only to the degree that any truth creates a scandal."
Animula Vagula Blandula, pp.20-21

"A part of every life, even a life meriting very little regard, is spent in searching out reasons for its existence, its starting point, and its source."
Animula Vagula Blandula, p. 26

"One night (I was eleven years old at the time) he came and shook me from my sleep and announced, with the same grumbling laconism that he would have employed to predict a good harvest to his tenants, that I should rule the world."
Varius Multiplex Multiformis, p. 31

"I would turn my back on the southern horizon, which enclosed the seas and islands that we know, and on...