Creation, like love, is a seductive pursuit filled with uncertainty and fluttering heartbeats. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

Gradually, I began to understand that it does not matter very much what problem, whether big or small, is tormenting us; the only thing that matters is that we be tormented. In other words, that we exercise our minds in order to keep certainty from turning us into idiots, that we fight to open every closed door we find in front of us. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

I had allowed my body to take whatever path it wished. The fact that it was guiding me and not I gave me great pleasure. I had confidence. The body is not blind wrought material when bathed in Greek light; it is suffused with abundant soul which makes it phosphorescent, and is left free, it is able to arrive at its own decision and find the correct road without the mind's intervention. Conversely, the soul is not an invisible airy phantom; it has taken on somebody's sureness and warmth in its own right, and it savors the world with what you might call carnal pleasure, as though it had a mouth and nostrils and hands with which to caress this world. Man often lacks the persistence to maintain all of his humanity. He mutilates himself. Sometimes he wishes to be released from his soul sometimes from his body. To enjoy both together seems a heavy sentence. But here in Greece these two graceful, deathless elements are able to commingle like hot water with cold, the soul to take something from the body, the body from the soul. They become friends, and thus man, here on Greece's divine threshing floor, is able to live and journey unmutilated, intact. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

I had allowed my body to take whatever path it wished. The fact that it was guiding me and not I gave me great pleasure. I had confidence. The body is not blind wrought material when bathed in Greek light; it is suffused with abundant soul which makes it phosphorescent, and it left free, it is able to arrive at its own decision and find the correct road without the mind's intervention. Conversely, the soul is not an invisible airy phantom; it has taken on somebody's sureness and warmth in its own right, and it savors the world with what you might call carnal pleasure, as though it had a mouth and nostrils and hands with which to caress this world. Man often lacks the persistence to maintain all of his humanity. He mutilates himself. Sometimes he wishes to be released from his soul sometimes from his body. To enjoy both together seems a heavy sentence. But here in Greece these two graceful, deathless elements are able to commingle like hot water with cold, the soul to take something from the body, the body from the soul. They become friends, and thus man, here on Greece's divine threshing floor, is able to live and journey unmutilated, intact. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

I had allowed my body to take whatever path it wished. The fact that it was guiding me and not I gave me great pleasure. I had confidence. The body is not blind wrought material when bathed in Greek light; it is suffused with abundant soul which makes it phosphorescent, and it left free, it is able to arrive at its own decision and find the correct road without the mind's intervention. Conversely, the soul is not an invisible airy phantom; it has taken on somebody's sureness and warmth in its own right, and it savors the world with what you might call carnal pleasure, as though it had a mouth and nostrils and hands with which to caress this world. Man often lacks the persistence to maintain all of his humanity. He mutilates himself. Sometimes he wishes to be released from his soul sometimes from his body. To enjoy both together seems a heavy sentence. But here is Greece these two graceful, deathless elements are able to commingle like hot water with cold, the soul to take something from the body, the body from the soul. They become friends, and thus man, here on Greece's divine threshing floor, is able to live and journey unmutilated, intact. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

Love of liberty, the refusal to accept your soul's enslavement, not even in exchange for paradise; stalwart games over and above love and pain, over and above death; smashing even the most sacrosanct of the molds when they are unable to contain you any longer - these are the great cries of Crete. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

Lower those sable eyes regarding me, Lower them, my jewel; they are flogging me. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

The human heart is a dark, unyielding mystery. It is a perforated jug with a mouth forever open; though all rivers of the earth pour in, it will remain empty and thirsting. The greatest of hopes had not filled it. Would it be filled now by the greatest of despairs? (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

The man who writes has an oppressive and unhappy fate. This is because the nature of his work obliges him to use words; that is, to convert his inner surge into immobility. Every word is an adamantine shell which encloses a great explosive force. To discover the meaning you must let it burst inside you like a bomb and in this way liberate the soul which it imprisons. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis

There is a kind of flame in Crete - let us call it "soul" - something more powerful than either life or death. There is pride, obstinacy, valor, and together with this something else inexpressible and imponderable, something which makes you rejoice that you are human being, and at the same time tremble. (Report to GREC)

— N. Kazantzakis