“to love at all is to be vulnerable.
love anything, & your heart will certainly be wrung & possibly be broken.
if you want to make sure of keeping it intact,
you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.
wrap it carefully round with hobbies & little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
but in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.
it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
the alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.”