In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

The person I am in the company of my sisters has been entirely different from the person I am in the company of other people. Fearless, powerful, surprising, moved as I otherwise am only when I write.

Everyone carries a room about inside him. This fact can even be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast and one pricks up one’s ears and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears, for instance, the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall.

Writing [is] a form of prayer.

But what if all the tranquility, all the comfort, all the contentment were now to come to a horrifying end?

There sat I, a faded being, under faded leaves.

The true way goes over a line that, rather than spanning heights, is hardly above the ground. It appears more decidedly to make one trip than to be walked along.