“There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved.And a voice answered and said, 'Who is there?'The lover replied, 'It is I.''Go hence,' returned the voice;'there is no room within for thee and me.'Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded,'Who is there?'He answered, 'It is thou.''Enter,' said the voice, 'for I am within.”

“All day I think about it, then at night I say it.Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?I have no idea.My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,And I intend to end up there.This drunkenness began in some other tavern.When I get back around to that place,I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.The day is coming when I fly off,But who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?Who says words with my mouth?Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?I cannot stop asking.If I could taste one sip of an answer,I could break out of this prison for drunks.I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.I don't plan it.When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.That's fine with us. Every morningWe glow and in the evening we glow again.”

“We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water.”

“There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows.In disciplined silence it opens; with wandering talk it closes.”

“I, you, he, she, weIn the garden of mystic lovers,these are not true distinctions.”

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be. ”

“There are lovers content with longing.I’m not one of them.”