I will not make a gift of myself, I must be won - Hermann Hesse

When I take a long look at my life, as though from outside, it does not appear particularly happy. Yet I am even less justified in calling it unhappy, despite all its mistakes. After all, it is foolish to keep probing for happiness or unhappiness, for it seems to me it would be hard to exchange the unhappiest days of my life for all the happy ones. If what matters in a person's existence is to accept the inevitable consciously, to taste the good and bad to the full and to make for oneself a more individual, unaccidental and inward destiny alongside one's external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless. Even if, as it is decreed by the gods, fate has inexorably trod over my external existence as it does with everyone, my inner life has been of my own making . I deserve its sweetness and bitterness and accept full responsibility for it.

Of the many monks who had thronged the church, the dormitories and study-rooms, there were two, remarked by all, whom all were watching - Abbot Daniel and the teaching novice, Narziss, only recently entered in the novitiate, yet already, against all tradition, and because of his exceptional gifts, employed, in Greek especially, as a teacher. These two, the novice and the abbot, were respected and heeded by all the house. They were watched and aroused curiosity, admired and envied, slandered in secret. Ch. I

You should never be afraid of people... such fear can destroy us completely. You've simply got to get rid of it, if you want to turn into someone decent. You understand that, don't you?