“I know I had everything, but not because I had it. I know because afterwards I had nothing else.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Que tuve todo lo sé, no por lo que tuve. Lo sé porque después no tuve más.
Voces (1943)
Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
Variant: All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
Source: War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
Context: Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.
“I know I had everything, but not because I had it. I know because afterwards I had nothing else.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Que tuve todo lo sé, no por lo que tuve. Lo sé porque después no tuve más.
Voces (1943)
“I wrote because I wanted to know what everything was about.”
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Penguins and Golden Calves (2003)
Context: I wrote because I wanted to know what everything was about. My father, before I was born, had been gassed in the first World War, and I wanted to know why there were wars, why people hurt each other, why we couldn't get along together, and what made people tick. That's why I started to write stories.
Djuna Barnes (1892–1982) American Modernist writer, poet and artist
Letter to Emily Holmes Coleman (2 February 1934) http://www.case.edu/artsci/engl/VSALM/mod/brandelmcdaniel/index/library.htm
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
Hermann Hesse book Narcissus and Goldmund
Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)
Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace
Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
“He despises me, because he knows I love him.”
Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XVIII : The Miniature; Helen Graham