How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?

He does not always remain bent over the pages; he often leans back and closes his eyes over a line he has been reading again, and its meaning spreads through his blood.

Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Go on loving what is good, simple, and ordinary.

Never has grief been possessed, never has love been learned, and what removes us in death is not revealed.

You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. ... But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you [that is, passed through you]. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.

And do not change. Do not divert your love from visible things. But go on loving what is good, simple and ordinary; animals and things and flowers, and keep the balance true.