. . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same . . . [like] something suspended . . . an elsewhere . . . an always within a never. Yes, that's is, an always within a never.

This morning I understand what it means to die: when we disappear, it is the others who die for us, for here I am, lying on a cold pavement and it is not the dying I care about; it has no more meaning this morning that it did yesterday. But never again will I see those I love, and if that is what dying is about then it really is the tragedy they say it is.

Yes, our eyes may perceive, yet they do not observe; they may believe, yet they do not question; they may receive yet they do not search: they are emptied of desire, with neither hunger nor passion.

I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

...I am an anomaly in the system, living proof of how grotesque it is, and every day I mock it gently, deep within my impenetrable self.

When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?

To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things.