The melancholy river bears us on. When the moon comes through the trailing willow boughs, I see your face, I hear your voice and the bird singing as we pass the osier bed. What are you whispering? Sorrow, sorrow. Joy, joy. Woven together, like reeds in moonlight.

Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.

But when we sit together, close,’ said Bernard, ‘we melt into each other with phrases. We are edged with mist. We make an unsubstantial territory.

I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them.

And you wish to be a poet; and you wish to be a lover.

Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.

We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.