Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the Word of the Lord is to the soul.

You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.

But by the time that I had nothing left, I myself was the lightest thing of all for fate to get rid of.

I have before seen other countries, in the same manner, give themselves to you when you are about to leave them.

The air was cold to the lungs, the long grass dripping wet, and the herbs on it gave out their spiced astringent scent. In a little while on all sides the Cicada would begin to sing. The grass was me , and the air, the distant invisible mountains were me, the tired oxen were me. I breathed with the slight night-wind in the thorn trees.

Man reaches the highest point of lovableness at 12 to 17 - to get it back, in a second flowering, at the age of 70 to 90

As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things; but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other.