“For I was reared in the great city, pent with cloisters dim,and saw naught lovely but the sky and stars.But thou, my babe! Shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf a...”

“The one red leaf, the last of its clan,That dances as often as dance it can,Hanging so light, and hanging so high,On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.”

“Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion;As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ocean.”

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

“No man was ever yet a great poet, without at the same time being a profound philosopher.”

“But I do not doubt that it is beneficial sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as in a picture, the image of a grander and better world; for if the mind grows used to the trivia of daily life, it m...”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”

“I heard Tash say: Nomi, youre sad man. Get a grip. Walk away. What have I taught you? And I thought: You taught me that some people can leave and some cant and those who can will always be infinite...”

“Sadness, forever unacknowledged, eventually becomes resentment.”

“She resented a universe that forced her to fabricate cover stories for its more inexplicable vagaries.”

“[She] had heard it said that there was only one emotion which, in recollection, was capable of resurrecting the full immediacy and power of the originalone emotion that time could never fade, and t...”

“In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.'What is it then?'It is the only way a powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The wish is not to die, bu...”

“I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution ...”