Life begins on the other side of despair. - Jean-Paul Sartre

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati's.

It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns
...
It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I.

nothing that exists can be comic; it was like a floating analogy, almost entirely elusive, with certain aspects of vaudeville.