“This is the creature there has never been.They never knew it, and yet, none the less,they loved the way it moved, its suppleness,its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.Not there, because they loved it, it behavedas though it were. They always left some space.And in that clear unpeopled space they savedit lightly reared its head, with scarce a traceof not being there. They fed it, not with corn,but only with the possibilityof being. And that was able to confersuch strength, its brow put forth a horn. One horn.Whitely it stole up to a maid - to bewithin the silver mirror and in her.”

“His gaze, bluntedby the unnumbered processionof iron bars, uncountedas his softly padded steps.Smooth motion of blood and sinewturning in its own, small circleprescribed by bars and walls...and skin, confined.Suddenly, without warning,a flash of light and imagepierces the caged brain,and passing through its beating heartto stillness finds its way. ”

“I want to mirror your image in its fullest perfection. Never be blind or too old to uphold your weighty wavering reflection”

“In their new personal development the girl and the woman will only be for a short time imitations of the good and bad manners of man and reiterations of man's professions. After the uncertainty of this transition it will appear that women have passed through those many, often ridiculous, changes of disguise, only to free themselves from the disturbing influence of the other sex. For women, in whom life tarries and dwells in a more incommunicable, fruitful and confident form, must at bottom have become richer beings, more ideally human beings than fundamentally easy-going man, who is not drawn down beneath the surface of life by the difficulty of bearing bodily fruit, and who arrogantly and hastily undervalues what he means to love. When this humanity of woman, borne to the full in pain and humiliation, has stripped off in the course of the changes of its outward position the old convention of simple feminine weakness, it will come to light, and man, who cannot yet feel it coming, will be surprised and smitten by it. One day—a day of which trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining forth especially in northern lands—one day that girl and woman will exist, whose name will no longer mean simply a contrast to what is masculine, but something for itself, something that will not make one think of any supplement or limit, but only of life and existence—the feminine human beings.This advance, at first very much against the will of man who has been overtaken—will alter the experience of love, which is now full of error, will change it radically and form it into a relationship, no longer between man and woman, but between human being and human being. And this more human love, which will be carried out with infinite consideration and gentleness and will be good and clean in its tyings and untyings, will be like that love which we are straining and toiling to prepare, the love which consists in this, that two lonely beings protect one another, border upon one another and greet one another.”

“Being dead filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit suffused with its own mystery and sweetness, she was filled with her vast death, which was so new, she could not understand that it had happened.”

“That's my window. This minuteSo gently did I alightFrom sleep--was still floating in it.Where has my life its limitAnd where begins the night?I could fancy all things around meWere nothing but I as yet;Like a crystal's depth, profoundlyMute, translucent, unlit.I have space to spare inside meFor the stars, too: so full of roomFeels my heart; so lightlyWould it let go of him, whomFor all I know I have startedTo love, it may be to hold.Strange, as if never charted,Stares my fortune untold.Why is it I am beddedBeneath this infinitude,Fragrant like a meadow,Hither and thither moved,Calling out, yet fearingSomeone might hear the cry,Destined to disappearingWithin another I.”

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.”