"The grave is not the end. From the graves of those we love most and where, with those we love most, are buried all our selfish drives and desires, w… - Lou Andreas-Salomé

Objectivity is mankind's glorious goal, summoning narcissism, Eros masked, from the dreams of childhood to the service of research, progress, art, and culture. When it stays behind in childish dreaming, and when its leap falls short, it slips without a blow into the bottomless deeps of disease.

I cannot think of any personal fate which could have cost me anything like such anguish. And I don't really believe that after this we shall ever be able to be really happy again. (p. 20)

Mourning is not as singular a state of emotional preoccupation as is commonly thought: it is, more precisely, an incessant discourse with the departed one, in order to draw him nearer. For death entails not merely a disappearance but rather a transformation into a new realm of visibility. Something is not just taken away but is gained, in a way never before experienced. In the moment when the flowing lines of a figure’s constant change and effect become paralyzed for us, we are imbued for the first time with its essence: something which is never captured or fully realized in the normal course of lived existence. -- Kindle p. 26