a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude

Just as the creative artist is not allowed to choose, neither is he permitted to turn his back on anything: a single refusal, and he is cast out of the state of grace and becomes sinful all the way through.

The hero is strangely akin to those who die young.

As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.

May I strike my heart's keys clearly, and may none fail because of slack, uncertain, or fraying strings. May the tears that stream down my face make me more radiant: may my hidden weeping bloom.... How we waste our afflictions!... [T]hey're really our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only a season—: they're site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode.

Yet everything that touches us, me and you, takes us together like a violin's bow, which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

Nearly everything that matters is a challenge, and everything matters.