The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.

When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.

What a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.

If only we know, boss, what the stones and rain and flowers say. Maybe they call-call us-and we don't hear them. When will people's ears open, boss? When shall we have our eyes open to see? When shall we open our arms to embrace everything-stones, rain, flowers, and people? What do you think about that, boss? And what do your books have to say about that?

There is no harsher means of punishment, than to answer malice with kindness.

With the world in the state it is today, whoever is virtuous must be so to the point of sainthood, and even beyond; whoever is a sinner must be so to the point of bestiality and even beyond. Today the middle road is no more.

I loved my body and did not want it to perish; I loved my soul and did not want it to decay. I have fought to reconcile these two primordial forces.