The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.

The circle of our understanding is a very restricted area.

Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea.

We do not pass twice through the same door Or return to the door through which we did not pass.

You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value.

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. . . . So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

In order to possess what you do not possess, you must go by the way of dispossession.