I thought about how this banknote had witnessed a moment of each one of those people's lives. Maybe it had been at the scene of a murder, then passed from the murderer to a shopkeeper somewhere, then to a good person somewhere else.
. . .
Long, glistening, towering. It's like I'm outside somewhere. Then as I'm looking at it I'm thinking, What is that? It's pure, higher than the clouds, the top hidden from sight. And then I realize that I can't go there, that this hot smoky whiteness is my high point. But just because it's my peak, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'll reach it. What I mean is, it's my limit. It feels wonderful. I destroy all those values and I exist solely as sensation. I become unbearably hot and then vanish. That tall, shiny tower is a long way off, but I die happily under its ruins. Of course it's high and beautiful, and I can't help longing for it, but that's because it represents my greatest desire.
. . .
Tension and a heightened sense of responsibility can stretch a person's abilities to the max, but if you apply too much pressure it can have the opposite effect and lead to mistakes.
. . .
In this life, the proper way of living is to make use of both joy and suffering. They are both merely stimuli that the world presents to us. So by blending them skillfully within you, you can use them in a completely different way. If you want to be steeped in evil, you mustn't forget good. When you see a woman writhing in agony, laughter is unimaginative. When you see a woman writhing in agony, pity her, feel sorry for her, imagine her pain, imagine the parents who raised her even, weep tears of sympathy-while torturing her even more. That moment is just exquisite! Taste everything in the whole world. Even if you should fail at these tasks, taste the emotion that comes with failure. Savor with all your senses the fear of death. When you can do that, you transcend yourself. You can look at this world through different eyes. Straight after I brutally murder someone, the sunrise appears so beautiful, and I look at the smiling face of a child and think how adorable it is. If that child is an orphan, I may help her or I may kill her there and then. Even as I pity her! If gods or fate had personalities and emotions, don't you think this is close to what they would feel? In this world where children and saints die outrageous deaths?
. . .
Reaching out my hands to steal, I had turned my back on everything, rejected community, rejected wholesomeness and light. I had built a wall around myself and lived by sneaking into the gaps in the darkness of life. Despite that, however, for some reason I felt that I wanted to be here for a little while longer.
