The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.

It’s possible, I’m moving through the hard veins of heavy mountains, like an arc, alone; I’m so deep inside, I see no end in sight, and no distance: everything is getting near and everything near is turning to stone.

Only the individual who is solitary is like a thing placed under profound laws, and when he goes out into the morning that is just beginning, or looks out into the evening that is full of happening, and if he feels what is going on there, then all status drops from him as from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of sheer life.

There are so many things about which some old man ought to tell one while one is little; for when one is grown one would know them as a matter of course.

I am so glad you are here. It helps me realize how beautiful my world is.

And you suddenly know: It was here! You pull yourself together, and there stands an irrevocable year of anguish and vision and prayer.

The hero is strangely akin to those who die young.