Not even need and love can defeat fate...

A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it.

When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.

Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. —Chuang Tse: XXIII

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

I have given my love to what is worthy of love. Is that not the kingdom and the unperishing spring?