your laws do not compel me

Only where there are graves are there resurrections.

There is nothing more necessary than truth; in comparison with it, everything else has only secondary value.

I was obsessed with loss; not surprisingly, I was also acquisitive, possessive. The two tendencies fed each other; every impulse to extend my holdings increased the fundamental anxiety. Actual loss, loss of mere property, was a release, an abrupt transition from anticipation to expertise. In passing, I learned something about fire, about its appetite. I watched the destruction of all that had been, all that would not be again, and all that remained took on a radiance. These are, in the deepest sense, ordinary experiences. On the subject of change, of loss, we all attain to authority. In my case, the timing was efficient. I was in my late thirties; perhaps I’d learned all I could about preparation, about gathering. The next lesson is abandon, letting go.

“Never, never tell them. Try and remember that. Never tell anyone anything ever. Never tell anyone anything again.”