And all I loved, I loved alone.

I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.

A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet . . . yet the fool has never read Shakespeare.

Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.

One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die.