Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

I am free and that is why I am lost.

The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows.

The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

The relationship to one's fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one's striving.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.