The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

If every soldier refused to take arms ... there would be no wars; but no one has the courage to be the first to live according to Christ and Socrates, because in a world of opportunists they would be martyred.

A little thing, like children putting flowers in my hair, can fill up the widening cracks in my self-assurance like soothing lanolin.

I used to pray to recover you.

Now I know what loneliness is, I think. Momentary loneliness, anyway. It comes from a vague core of the self - - like a disease of the blood, dispersed throughout the body so that one cannot locate the matrix, the spot of contagion.

Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person

There is a charge For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge For the hearing of my heart - It really goes. And there is a charge, a very large charge, For a word or a touch Or a bit of blood Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.