Drunk from the bitter truth,/I refuse all other wine. - Anna Margolin

even if he brought me the worst unhappiness, even if he should cause my soul to age terribly, there's one thing that he could never kill inside me-my striving for higher things, my ardent longing for the mountain peak.

My books, my great friends, gaze down on me with quiet resentment, calling me to them.

I lie awake with open eyes during sleepless nights and look at them in cold surprise, and I seek to understand how these strange, distant people could have once been so close and dear to me. What magical thread bound me to them? And how had they severed that thread? And why was this all so alien and meaningless to me now?