Quote #182

My idea, when I write a book, is to wake up someone, to fustigate him. Given that the books I have written arose from my malaises, not to mention my sufferings, it's exactly that that they should transmit in some form to the reader. A book should overturn everything, call everything into question.

More from Emile Cioran

  1. I have no nationality-the best possible status for an intellectual.
  2. 'I wish I were a cannibal - less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.'
  3. I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?
  4. On n'habite pas un pays, on habite une langue.
  5. Getting up in the middle of the night, I walked around my room with the certainty of being chosen and criminal, a double privilege natural …
  6. My weaknesses have spoiled my existence, but it is thanks to them that I exist, that I imagine I exist
  7. One cannot live without motives. I have no motives left, and I am living.
  8. The only way of enduring one disaster after the next is to love the very idea of disaster: if we succeed, there are no further surprises, w…

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