“When everything was fineAnd the notion of sin had vanishedAnd the earth was readyIn universal peaceTo consume and rejoiceWithout creeds and utopias,I, for unknown reasons,Surrounded by the booksOf prophets and theologians,Of philosophers, poets,Searched for an answer,Scowling, grimacing,Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.What oppressed me so muchWas a bit shameful.Talking of it aloudWould show neither tact nor prudence.It might even seem an outrageAgainst the health of mankind. . .”

“neither poems nor prose just a length of rope just the wet earth -- that's the way home.neither vodka nor bread just bursts of rage just more new graves -- that's youth and that's love.neither sleep nor waking neither joy nor laughter just tears in the night -- so the rope, paper, knife.”

“The universe is neither centered on earth nor the sun. It is centered on God.”

“In Ephesians 5, Paul shows us that even on earth Jesus did not use his power to oppress us but sacrificed everything to bring us into union with him. And this takes us beyond the philosophical to the personal and the practical. If God had the gospel of Jesus's salvation in mind when he established marriage, then marriage only 'works' to the degree that approximates the pattern of God's self-giving love in Christ.”

“I have slept with you all night long while the dark earth spins with the living and the dead, and on waking suddenly in the midst of the shadow my arm encircled your waist. Neither night nor sleep could separate us.”

“I endured all our hardships as if they had been luxuries: I made light of scurvy, banqueted off train-oil, and met that cold for which there is no language framed, and which might be a new element; or which, rather, had seemed in that long night like the vast void of ether beyond the uttermost star, where was neither air nor light nor heat, but only bitter negation and emptiness. I was hardly conscious of my body; I was only a concentrated search in myself.”