There would have to be bread, some rich, whole-grain bread and zwieback, and perhaps on a long, narrow dish some pale Westphalian ham laced with strips of white fat like an evening sky with bands of clouds. There would be some tea ready to be drunk, yellowish golden tea in glasses with silver saucers, giving off a faint fragrance.

We must assume our existence as broadly as we in any way can; everything, even the unheard - of, must be possible in it. This is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most inexplicable.

Do not, do not, do not books for ever hammer at people like perpetual bells? When, between two books, silent sky appears: be glad

What we fight with is so small, and when we win, it makes us small. What we want is to be defeated, decisively, by successively greater things

For bel.i.eve me, the more one is, the richer is all one experiences. And whoever wants to have deep love in his life must collect and save for it and gather honey.

Everything is gestation and bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life.

Look, we don't love like flowers with only one season behind us; when we love, a sap older than memory rises in our arms.