Hermann Hesse

You were too lazy to learn to dance until it was almost too late, and in the same way you were too lazy to learn to love. As for ideal and tragic love, that I don't doubt you can do marvellously- and all honour to you. Now you will learn to love a little in an ordinary human way.

I do want more. I am not content with being happy. I was not made for it. It is not my destiny. My destiny is the opposite.

As a body everyone is single, as a soul never.

I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.