"Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell."

Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund (via lavandula)

(Source: frenchtwist, via booklover)

"Once it happened, as I lay awake at night, that I suddenly spoke in verses, in verses so beautiful and strange that I did not venture to think of writing them down, and then in the morning they vanished; and yet they lay hidden within me like the hard kernel within an old brittle husk."

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, trans. Basil Creighton (via proustitute)