Quotes About Emil Cioran

To get up in the morning, wash and then wait for some unforeseen variety of dread or depression. I would give the whole universe and all of Shakespeare for a grain of ataraxy.

Shame on the man who goes to his grave escorted by the miserable hopes that have kept him alive.

Between the demand to be clear,and the temptation to be obscure, impossible to decide which deserves more respect.

Unmaking, decreating, is the only task man may take upon himself, if he aspires, as everything suggests, to distinguish himself from the Creator.

Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.

At bottom, for me, the act of writing is a sort of dialogue with God. I say with God, but I am not a believer, although I cannot say that I am an unbeliever either. But for me, this meeting with God is in the act of writing. A solitude which meets another, a solitude in front of another solitude. 'God' being more alone than oneself. Such a shame that, to reach God, there is no bypassing faith.

I cannot bear your bothering about my salvation.

Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.

I'm very drawn to Eastern Europe, so I like a Hungarian writer who wrote in French called Emil Cioran; he was always good for giving me such a stir.