“To learn to be without desire you must desire that.Better to do as you please: sing idleness.Floating clouds, and water idly running -- Where's their source?In all the vastness of the sea and sky,you'll never find it.”

“Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire; Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire. ”

“You must promise me. You can't desire the end without desiring the means.'Ah, but one can, he thought, one can: one can desire the peace of victory without desiring the ravaged towns.”

“You do not get what you wish for, unless it be known to the source of your desire.”

“I like the way the morning can be stormy and the afternoon clear and sparkly as a jewel in the water. Put your hand in the water to reach for a sea urchin or a sea shell, and the thing desired never quite lies where you had lined it up to be. The same is true of love. In prospect or contemplation, love is where it seems to be. Reach in to lift it out and your hand misses”

“To sit and contemplate - to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased by the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy and yet content to remain where and what you are.”