My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry. - Nikos Kazantzakis

We must understand well that we do not proceed from a unity of God to the same unity of God again. We do not proceed from one chaos to another chaos, neither from one light to another light, nor from one darkness to another darkness. What would be the value of our life then? What would be the value of all life? But we set out from an almighty chaos, from a thick abyss of light and darkness tangled. And we struggle — plants, animals, men, ideas — in this momentary passage of individual life, to put in order the Chaos within us, to cleanse the abyss, to work upon as much darkness as we can within our bodies and to transmute it into light.

I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream. But I feel all the powers of the universe whirling within me.

Do you believe in dreams, Uncle Simeon? I do; I believe in nothing else. One night I dreamed that invisible enemies had me tied to a dead cypress. Long red arrows were sticking into me from my head to my feet, and the blood was flowing. On my head they had placed a crown of thorns, and intertwined with the thorns were fiery letters which said: "Saint Blasphemer." I am Saint Blasphemer, Rabbi Simeon. So you'd better not ask me anything else, or I'll start my blasphemies.