“It’s possible, I’m moving through the hard veins of heavy mountains, like an arc, alone; I’m so deep inside, I see no end in sight, and no distance: everything is getting near and everything near is turning to stone.”

“Vielleicht, daß ich durch schwere Berge gehein harten Adern, wie ein Erz allein;und bin so tief, daß ich kein Ende seheund keine Ferne: alles wurde Näheund alle Nähe wurde Stein.Ich bin ja kein Wissender im Wehe,—so macht mich dieses große Dunkel klein;bist Du es aber: mach dich schwer, brich ein:daß deine ganze Hand an mir gescheheund ich an dir mit meinem ganzen Schrein.It's possible I'm moving through the hard veinsof heavy mountains, like the ore does, alone;I'm already so deep inside, I see no end in sight,and no distance: everything is getting nearand everything getting near is turning to stone.I still can't see very far yet into suffering,—so this vast darkness makes me small;are you the one: make yourself powerful, break in:so that your whole being may happen to me,and to you may happen, my whole cry. ”

“Yes, he knew that we was withdrawing from everything: not merely from human beings. A moment more and everything will have lost its meaning, and that table and the cup, and the chair to which he clings, all the near and the commonplace, will have become unintelligible, strange and heavy. So he sat there and waited until it should have happened. And defended himself no longer.”

“I want my own will, and I wantsimply to be with my will,as it goes toward action.And in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times,when something is coming near,I want to be with those who knowsecret things or else alone...I want to unfold.I don’t want to be folded anywhere,because where I am folded,there I am a lie.”

“I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enoughto make every moment holy.I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enoughjust to lie before you like a thing,shrewd and secretive.I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,as it goes toward action;and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,when something is coming near,I want to be with those who know secret thingsor else alone.I want to be a mirror for your whole body,and I never want to be blind, or to be too oldto hold up your heavy and swaying picture.I want to unfold.I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,because where I am folded, there I am a lie.and I want my grasp of things to betrue before you. I want to describe myselflike a painting that I looked atclosely for a long time,like a saying that I finally understood,like the pitcher I use every day,like the face of my mother,like a shipthat carried methrough the wildest storm of all.”

“You darkness, that I come from,I love you more than all the firesthat fence in the world,for the fire makesa circle of light for everyone,and then no one outside learns of you.But the darkness pulls in everything:shapes and fires, animals and myself,how easily it gathers them! -powers and people -and it is possible a great energyis moving near me.I have faith in nights.”

“We make our way through Everything like thread passing through fabric, giving shape to images that we ourselves do not know.”