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“Replying, I attempted to make my companion understand the meaning of sacred terror. "We are small worms, Zorba, very small worms on the tiniest leaf of a gigantic tree. This tiny leaf is our earth; the other leaves are the stars you see moving at night. We drag ourselves along on our tiny lea, eagerly ferreting around in it. We smell it: it has an odor. We taste it: it can be eaten. We strike it: it resounds, shouting like a living thing. Some of us human beings, the most fearless, reach the edge of the leaf. We bend over this edge with open eyes and ears, observing chaos below. We shudder. We divine the terrible drop beneath us, occasionally hear a sound made by the gigantic tree's other leaves, sense the sap rising from the roots, swelling our hearts. In this way, leaning over the abyss, we realize with all our body and soul that we are being overcome by terror. What begins at that moment is-"
I stopped. I had wanted to say, "What begins at that moment is poetry," but Zorba would not have understood, so I kept silent.
"What begins?" asked Zorba eagerly. "Why did you stop?"
"At that moment, Zorba, begins the great danger," I replied. "Some become dazed and delirious; others, growing afraid, take great pains to discover an answer that will brace their heart. These say, 'God.' Still others, calmly, bravely, look down at the drop from the leaf's edge and say, 'I like it.'"
Zorba thought for a long time, probing deeply in order to understand. "I look down at death continually," he said at last. "I look at it and am not afraid. Never, however, do I say, 'I like it.' No, I do not like it, not at all. I am free, am I not? I don't sign!”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek
