Nishant Mehrotra

“I felt pleasantly empty, untouched by everything around me and happy to be unseen by all.”
― Knut Hamsun, Hunger

“The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.”
― Lao Tzu, Te-Tao Ching

“the emperor’s two chief ministers were detected in a plan to replace Bonaparte by Murat, the emperor subjected Talleyrand to a lengthy and public dressing down in front of an astonished court. His parade-ground language was shocking, as in his tirade to Whitworth—he called Talleyrand “merde en bas-de-soie” (a shit in silk stockings)—and from that day to this, no one knows whether Bonaparte’s loss of temper was deliberate or not.”
― Paul Johnson, Napoleon: A Life

“I was conscious all the time that I was following mad whims without being able to do anything about it … . Despite my alienation from myself at that moment, and even though I was nothing but a battleground for invisible forces, I was aware of every detail of what was going on around me.”
― Knut Hamsun, Hunger