Is it any wonder, since, when near the fire, I was melted and burned, if now that it's extinguished outside me, it besets and consumes me inside, and bit by bit reduces me to ashes?

No thought is born in me that does not bear the image of death.

Read the heart and not the letter for the pen cannot draw near the good intent.

Why do You Send Fools To judge My Work?

If I am more alive because love burns and chars me, as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation, it's that he who lays me low is my salvation, and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.