“I wish I could do whatever I liked behind the curtain of "madness". Then: I'd arrange flowers, all day long, I'd paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: "Poor thing, she's crazy!" (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else's - my madness would not be an escape from "reality".”

“For too much rest becomes a pain.”

“You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering.”

“The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.”

“I said: what about my eyes?God said: Keep them on the road.I said: what about my passion?God said: Keep it burning.I said: what about my heart?God said: Tell me what you hold inside it?I said: pain and sorrow?He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

“For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”

“The still affection of the heart Became an outward breathing type, That into stillness past again, And left a want unknown before; Although the loss had brought us pain, That loss but made us love the more.”