I encountered in the street a poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes. Water trickled through his boots, and the stars through his soul.
*
Oh joy of the birds! It because they have nests that they sing.
*
Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise.
*
On the day when a woman as she passes before you emits light as she walks, you are lost, you love.
*
True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or a handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its desires and its hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. Nothing suffices for love: we have happiness, we desire paradise: we possess paradise, we desire heaven.
*
“Does she still come to the gardens?
“No. She has moved away.”
“Where has she gone to dwell?”
“She did not say.”
*
What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one’s soul.
*
If you are a stone, be adamant. If you are a plant, be the tender plant. If you are man, be love.
*
What love commences can be finished by God alone.
*
Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. It is a point of fire: immortal, infinite— which nothing can contain, which nothing can extinguish.

words from Les Misérables.

recording of my piece ‘Aphorisms’ from last year – not a wonderful quality recording, but listenable!  for 2-part women’s choir.