Du mußt dein Leben ändern

Listening to Bach's Cantata No. 32, I realized how very near the invisible world is to us, if we do not drive it away. When I heard his cantata for the first time, around 1926, it stirred me so deeply that I foresaw it would be necessary for me to change my whole life, but that I should remain in the world. Impossible to express how great a part Bach has played in my life; it is he, more than any other, who has reconciled me to the idea of dying.

(Julien Green, Journal, May 26, 1953)