MY river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me? My river waits reply. Oh sea, look graciously! I ’ll fetch thee brooks From spotted nooks,— Say, sea, Take me!

Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love.

What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss.

And the story of love is a long sad tale ending in graves.

I feel that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.

And then I saw him and nothing was ever the same again. The sky was never the same colour, the moon never the same shape: the air never smelt the same, food never tasted the same. Every word I knew changed its meaning, everything that once was stable and firm became as insubstantial as a puff of wind, and every puff of wind became a solid thing I could feel and touch.