He had thought more than other men, and in matters of the intellect he had that calm objectivity, that certainty of thought and knowledge, such as only really intellectual men have, who have no axe to grind, who never wish to shine, or to talk others down, or to appear always in the right.

Remember this: one can be a strict logician or grammarian and at the same time full of imagination and music.

The tree does not die, it waits.

It taught him how to listen -- how to listen with a quiet heart and a waiting soul, open soul, without passion, without desire, without judgment, without opinion.

I am in truth the Steppenwolf that I often call myself; that beast astray that finds neither home nor joy nor nourishment in a world that is strange and incomprehensible to him.

I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.

Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus, without searching, thus simply, thus childlike.