“To be an ignorant man, to posses nothing but a fragile word, to find oneself as if relying upon darkness and nothingness: that is the position from which one must be constantly setting out.”

“To know nothing about yourself is to be constantly in danger of nothingness, those voids of non-being over which a man walks the tightrope of his life.”

“The initial revelation of any monastery: everything is nothing. Thus begin all mysticisms. It is less than one step from nothing to God, for God is the positive expression of nothingness.”

“In the process, what must be spoken meets what cannot be said. Each word is a catalyst, requiring the writer to break out forcefully from another story, from the primitive camp where history, society, and politics converge, to touch upon that 'what' and that 'who.' At that touch, one finds the unlimited boundaries of man, concealed by words.”

“Meditation is not a withdrawal from life. Meditation is a process of understanding oneself. And, when one begins to understand oneself, not only the conscious but all the hidden parts of oneself as well, then there comes tranquility. Meditation demands constant watchfulness, constant awareness of every word, thought and feeling, which reveals the state of our own being, and as that is arduous, we escape into every kind of conformity, deceptive thing and call it meditation.”

“The choice to remain faithful to the drive to question (the fertile source of the experience of nothingness) brings with it an obscure joy. For to be faithful to that drive...is to be constantly expanding one's horizon, constantly losing one's life, and constantly regaining it. It is to be as alert to other persons, to situations, and to events as one can: to their fragility and terror, as well as to their obscure coherence and often veiled beauty. To be faithful to the drive to question is to accept despair as one's due, to accept risk as one's condition, and to accept the crumbs of discovery as joy. [...] The darkness is habitable...Those who accept the darkness as their lot are instantly secure, not through some newfound solidity but through the perception that insecurity is man's natural state, a truthful state, a healthy state.”