Unkind people imagine themselves to be inflicting pain on someone equally unkind.

And wasn't my mind also like another crib in the depths of which I felt I remained ensconced, even in order to watch what was happening outside? When I saw an external object, my awareness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it, lining it with a thin spiritual border that prevented me from ever directly touching its substance; it would volatize in some way before I could make contact with it, just as an incandescent body brought near a wet object never touches its moisture because it is always preceded by a zone of evaporation.

For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by painful anxiety.

For women who do not love us, as for the "disappeared", knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.

...a writer's works, like the water in an artesian well, mount to a height which is in proportion to the depth to which suffering has penetrated his soul.

We live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.

It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.