“When I was younger I dated older women because they knew what love is. Now that I’m older I date women young enough to have not forgotten it.”

“At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hesse registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial army, saying that he could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front. He was however, found unfit for combat duty, but was assigned to service involving the care of war prisoners. In September 1914, Hesse wrote an essay entitled “O Friends, Not These Tones” (“O Freunde, nicht diese Töne”), which was published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, on November 3. In this essay he appealed to German intellectuals not to fall for patriotism. He called for subdued voices and a recognition of Europe’s common heritage. What followed from this, Hesse later indicated, was a great turning point in his life: For the first time, he found himself in the middle of a serious political conflict, attacked by the German press, the recipient of hate mail, and distanced from old friends. He did receive continued support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, who visited Hesse in August 1915. In 1917, Hesse wrote to Rolland, “The attempt…to apply love to matters political has failed.”