“be like water, not like a rock”

“Wake up,' a voice like water rippling over rocks whispered in my ear.”

“Rarely will you meet anyone so jealous as a teacher. Year after year students tumble along like waters of a river. They flow away, and only the teacher is left behind, like some deeply buried rock at the bottom of the current.”

“What is harder than rock? What is softer than water? Yet hard rocks are hollowed out by soft water?”

“I wrenched open the windows. I stood while the cold air poured around my face like dark water, as if I was a rock and it was chiselling me into a new shape.”

“Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.”