“you are not the storythey keep telling about youover and over again.you are not even the storyyou keep telling yourself.there are no linesthat can hold you.there are not enough wordsfor all the mor...”

“the opening,the breaking,the falling apartis always so quick.the hurting,the healing,the putting back togetheris always too long.”

“i can't hold onto love.i'm not gentle enough.i always end upcrushing the thingin between my fingertips.”

“everything i know about loveis that it hurtsand is almost always never returnedthe way you want it to.but i have hopebecause i do not know everything.”

“i am awake and aliveand swollen and heavywith love.”

“i took it off.i did not want to carry it with me anymore.”

“Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?”

“Remembrance and reflection how allied!What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide!”

“Don't be afraid of poetry.”

“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...”

“A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.”

“Prose divides shame into stations.”

“He lifted his arm that had been resting on her shoulders and gazed at the words she had written on his hand. He had been branded as cattle are branded to show whom they belong to. The cold mountain...”