I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days, be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Who speaks of conquering? To endure is everything.

The artist's experience lies so unbelievably close to the sexual, to its pain and its pleasure, that the two phenomena are really just different forms of one and the same longing and bliss.

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it.

You darkness, that I come from, I love you more than all the fires that fence in the world.

It is a tremendous act of violence to begin anything. I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.