Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep forever.

It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.

Oh, the lies that I have told myself and others. I knew it yet I didn't know.

The library furnished our dreams, helped us shape our ambitions, made up people of books and ideas and grand designs.

I didn’t look to the shore much after this first long and memorable glimpse. I looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to me, the sound even of hymns sung only by men.

Phil was mumbling that Reuben might become a writer after all and writers had a way of "redeeming everything that ever happens to them.

My greatest sin has always been that I have a wonderful time being myself