as Schiller's painted image looked down

leaning flush against the red cafe wall

a couple sat staring past each other's eyes

catching conversations floating their way

stiff of posture, they awaited the meal passing by

their taste for communion being left unmet

their smile poised as if a surprise

dining quietly in panelled warmth

any mirth would have been gourmet to them

the bread of their meeting being silently dead

*More than ever, we'll need to constantly keep in mind that memory, like liberty, is a fragile thing.

  -Elizabeth Loftus

*It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

-Mother Teresa

*Reflections of Jean Sulivan:

-So much that we call understanding can develop into make-believe.  Even in the order of human knowledge, to understand is often simply a matter of putting a new word among words that are already known.

-It's the same, even more so, when it comes to eternal things.  The natural tendency is to come to a stop at signs, with a pretense at understanding that shows laziness and pretension.  For example, the concept of a personal God in itself, apart from a spiritual experience, is only a projection into metaphysical space of someone who has a high opinion of himself and passionately desires to be immortal.  Everything gets organized on that basis.  If God exists, he is all-powerful, all-good, etc. Hence, if there is disorder, man is guilty.  Such a God must reward and punish.  This is the kind of irrefutable logic that forms the foundation of many religious consciences.  Religious knowledge is often a shriveled chain of reasoning that starts with an idea that can't be questioned, the recognition of the need for a solid foundation.

-Language cannot be distinct from the person speaking; one might even say that language creates the speaker.