“and this passion, like bad kerosene, barely burns.”

“The arts (painting, poetry, etc.) are not just these. Eating, drinking, walking are also arts; every act is an art.”

“The pure and poorly adapted one who crashed against the world of fakes and cheats.”

“Mechanics is a means or discipline for the realization of life, but not life itself. It ought to carry us to life itself.”

“He wanted to be a poet,' someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. 'Said he'd only lacked the words to be one.”

“I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.”

“To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of em...”