To attempt suicide is a criminal offense. Any man who, of his own will, tries to escape the treadmill to which the rest of us feel chained incites our envy, and therefore our fury. We do not suffer him to go unpunished.

Sometimes I wonder if suicides are not sad guardians of the meaning of life.

There is no way of proving it is preferable to be than not to be.

The calm, cool face of the river asked me for a kiss.

The children were the only brake that stopped me from killing myself.

The strangest whim has seized me ... After all I think I will not hang myself today.

I take it that no man is educated who has never dallied with the thought of suicide.

Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest-whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories-comes afterward.

He emptied the ashtray containing his nail parings and cigarette butts into the toilet, and swept the floor with a shirt, so that there would be no trace of his life, of his body, when that lewd and searching shape of death came there to find him in the morning.

When even despair ceases to serve any creative purpose, then surely we are justified in suicide.