Steffi

“Oh oak tree, how they have pruned you.
Now you stand odd and strangely shaped!
You were hacked a hundred times
until you had nothing left but spite and will!

I am like you, so many insults and humiliations
could not shatter my link with life.
And every day I raise my head
beyond countless insults towards new light.
What in me was once gentle, sweet and tender
this world has ridiculed to death.
But my true self cannot be murdered.
I am at peace and reconciled.
I grow new leaves with patience
from branches hacked a hundred times.
In spite of all the pain and sorrow
I'm still in love with this mad, mad world.”
― Hermann Hesse, Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte

“They were big and brave, superb scholars and scientists, musicians, actors and athletes, and they were idiots who were throwing it all away, even as their high culture lamented or roared in pain.”
― Ian McEwan, What We Can Know

“Life and reading are not separate activities, When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.”
― Julian Barnes, A Life with Books

“Time is not money, but a sacred free gift. Priceless.”
― Matthew Edward Hall, San Mateo: Proof of The Divine