In my madness I was actually in love with her for the few hours it all lasted; it was the same unmistakable ache and stab across the mind, the same sighs, the same pain, and above all the same reluctance and fear to approach.

We lay on our backs looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when he made life so sad and disinclined.

No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language, and knowledge.

Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.

What is he aching to do? What are we all aching to do? What do we want?” She didn’t know. She yawned. She was sleepy. It was too much. Nobody could tell. Nobody would ever tell. It was all over. She was eighteen and most lovely, and lost.

A man who allows wild passion to arise within, himself burns his heart, then after burning adds the wind that thereto which ignites the fire again, or not, as the case may be.

Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me.