He was weary of himself, of cold ideas and brain dreams. Life a poem? Not when you went about forever poetizing about your own life instead of living… - Jens Peter Jacobsen

I am not offended by your love, Mr.Bigum, but I condemn it. You have done what so many others do. People close their eyes to real life, they don't want to hear the 'no' it shouts at their wishes, they want to forget the deep chasm it shows them between their longing and what they long for. They want to realize their dreams. But life doesn't take dreams into account, there is not a single obstacle that can be dreamed away from reality, and so in the end they lie there wailing at the chasm, which has not changed but is the same as it has always been.

What can it be, do you think? A hidden nerve that’s given way? Or something we have failed in or sinned against in ourselves, perhaps — who knows? A soul is such a fragile thing, and no one knows how far the soul extends in a human being. We ought to be good to ourselves —

She dreamed a thousand dreams of those sunlit regions and was consumed with longing for this other and richer self, forgetting — what is so easily forgotten — that even the fairest dreams and the deepest longings do not add an inch to the stature of the human soul.