I love three things," I then say. "I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth." "And which do you love best?" "The dream.

Today riches and honours have been lavished on me, but one gift has been lacking, the most important one of all, the only one that matters, the gift of youth.

Keep it, keep it!" I answered. "You are very welcome to it! It is only a couple of small things, doesn't amount to anything—about everything I own in the world.

Do you know what constitutes a great poet? He is a person without shame, incapable of blushing. Ordinary fools have moments when they go off by themselves and blush with shame; not so the great poet.... If you really have to quote someone, quote a geographer; that way you won't give yourself away. (p 44)

You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content.

I can't even make up a rhyme about an umbrella, let alone death and life and eternal peace.

Earth and sea merged, the sea tossed itself in the air in a fantastic dance, into the shapes of men and horses and tattered banners. I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things.