Is devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not virtue. It was a disguise.

If one's conscious life is too rigid, too regimented, then the surface may crack at times, and we are unprepared for the strange emotions or sensations we experience.

Love men and women not for their strength but their softness, not for their fullness but their hunger, not for their plenty but their need.

One always, sooner or later, comes upon a city which is an image of one's inner cities. Fez is an image of my inner self. ... The layers of the city of Fez are like the layers and secrecies of the inner life. One needs a guide. ... There were in Fez, as in my life, streets which led nowhere, impasses which remained a mystery.

Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.

Idealism is the death of the body and the imagination. All but freedom, utter freedom, is death

Tranquillity is contagious, peace is contagious. One only thinks of the contagiousness of illness, but there is the contagion of serenity and joy.