The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen.

One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.

One day, I watched the sun setting forty-four times......You know...when one is so terribly sad, one loves sunsets.

There is a cheap literature that speaks to us of the need of escape. It is true that when we travel we are in search of distance. But distance is not to be found. It melts away. And escape has never led anywhere. The moment a man finds that he must play the races, go the Arctic, or make war in order to feel himself alive, that man has begin to spin the strands that bind him to other men and to the world. But what wretched strands! A civilization that is really strong fills man to the brim, though he never stir. What are we worth when motionless, is the question.

He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious. He who seeks to become sexton of a finished cathedral is already defeated.

You know...my flower...I'm responsible for her. And she's so weak! And so naive. She has four ridiculous thorns to defend her against the world.

No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.