There are no classes in life for beginners; right away you are always asked to deal with what is most difficult.

Dig deep into your heart, where the answer spreads its roots in your being, and ask yourself solemnly, Must I write?

Whoever you are: in the evening step out of your room, where you know everything; yours is the last house before the far-off: whoever you are. With your eyes, which in their weariness barely free themselves from the worn-out threshold, you lift very slowly one black tree and place it against the sky: slender, alone. And you have made the world. And it is huge and like a word which grows ripe in silence. And as your will seizes on its meaning, tenderly your eyes let it go.

Some day when I lose you, will you still be able to sleep, without me to whisper over you like a crown of linden branches?

Never believe fate is more than the condensation of childhood.

It is possible I am pushing through solid rock, like the vein of ore encased, alone. I am such a long way in I can see no way through and no space. Everything is close to my face and everything close to my face is stone. I don't have much knowledge yet in grief, so this darkness makes me feel small. You, be the Master; Make yourself fierce; break in. And then your great transforming will happen to me And my great grief cry will happen to you.

If no one else, the dying must notice how unreal, how full of pretense, is all that we accomplish here, where nothing is allowed to be itself.