Commonplace Book

'One thought concentrated Torless's whole body. Are adults like that, too? Is the world like that? Is it a universal law that there is something within us that is stronger, bigger, more beautiful, more passionate, darker than we are ourselves? Something over which we are so powerless that we can only aimlessly scatter a thousand seeds until suddenly one of them sprouts forth like a dark flame that finally towers over us?...And every nerve in his body quivered with the impatient answer: Yes.'

from The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil