To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.

It is only framed in space that beauty blooms; only in space are events, and objects and people unique and significant and therefore beautiful.

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

Splutter, splutter. Yes - we're off - we're rising. But why start off with an engine like that? But it smooths out now, like a long sigh, like a person breathing easily, freely. Like someone singing ecstatically, climbing, soaring - sustained note of power and joy. We turn from the lights of the city; we pivot on a dark wing; we roar over the earth. The plane seems exultant now, even arrogant. We did it, we did it!

How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity.

This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.

For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.