" Associating with Benjamin was fraught with considerable difficulties, though on the surface these seemed insignificant in view of his consummate courtesy and willingness to listen. He always was surrounded by a wall of reserve, which could be recognized intuitively and was evident to another person even without Benjamin’s not infrequent efforts to make that area noticeable. These efforts consisted above all in a secretiveness bordering on eccentricity, a mystery-mongering that generally prevailed in everything relating to him personally, though it sometimes was breached unexpectedly by personal and confidential revelations. There were primarily three difficult requirements. The first was respect for his solitude; this was easy to observe, for it was dictated by a natural sense of limits. I soon realized that he appreciated this respect, a sine qua non for associating with him, and that it heightened his trust. The observance of the second requirement was particularly easy for me: his utter aversion to discussing the political events of the day and occurrences of the war. Some reviewers of the Briefe expressed astonishment at the fact that the published letters contain no reference to the events of the First World War (which, after all, so decisively influenced our generation) and blamed the editors (I was the one responsible for this period) for an incomprehensible omission or, worse, censorship. The fact of the matter is that in those years anyone who wished to have a closer association with Benjamin either had to share this attitude (as I did) or respect it. ...The third requirement, that of overlooking his secretiveness, often demanded a real effort, because there was something surprising, even ludicrous, about such secretiveness in someone as sober, as melancholy as Benjamin. He did not like to give the names of friends and acquaintances if he could avoid it. When circumstances of his life were mentioned, there frequently was attached an urgent request for absolute secrecy; more often than not this made very little sense. Gradually, but even then only partially, this secretiveness (which by that time others had noticed as well) began to dissipate, and Benjamin began to speak of people without the accompanying stamp of anonymity, at least when he had initiated the discussion. It was in keeping with this aversion that he tried to keep his acquaintances separate; for a time this was more effective with me, who came from another environment—Zionist youth—than it was with those from the same sphere as he, namely members of the German-Jewish intelligentsia. Only occasionally did it turn out that we had mutual acquaintances, such as the poet Ludwig Strauss or the philosopher David Baumgardt. Other friends and acquaintances of his I did not meet until years later, from 1918 on, some of them only after 1945. In short, then, to associate with Benjamin took a great deal of patience and consideration—qualities that were by no means natural to my temperament and that, to my own surprise, I was able to muster only in my association with him. "

― Gershom Scholem