No purpose intervenes between I and You, no greed and no anticipation; and longing itself is changed as it plunges from the dream into appearance. Every means is an obstacle. Only where all means have disintegrated encounters occur.

In spite of all similarities, every living situation has, like a newborn child, a new face, that has never been before and will never come again. It demands of you a reaction that cannot be prepared beforehand. It demands nothing of what is past. It demands presence, responsibility; it demands you.

I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human face looking at me.

Only men who are capable of saying Thou [an attitude of deep respect] to one another can truly say we with one another.

I think no human being can give more than this. Making life possible for the other, if only for a moment.

An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.

The perfection of any matter, the highest or the lowest, touches on the divine.