...there is no old age of the soul.

Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out - a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes - like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much.

It is a joy to be choked with thought.

And I'm convinced that knowing the names of things braces people up.

Each man has his own batch of poems.

It's no disgrace to be a private, you know. Socrates was a plain foot soldier, a hoplite.

The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.