" It's true that it's high time I was dead; and that all this is nonsense.

It's the truth I'm telling you.

I do value my idea and my work awfully; but in reality only consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet.

And for us to suppose we can have something great--ideas, work--it's all dust and ashes.

" "But all that's as old as the hills, my boy!" "It is old; but do you know, when you grasp this fully, then somehow everything becomes of no consequence.