Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.

We wasters of sorrows! How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them, trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else than our winter foliage, our sombre evergreen, one of the seasons of our interior year.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

The point is to live everything.

We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.

Thus we live, forever taking leave.

So you mustn't be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety - like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in the palm of its hand and will not let you fall.