Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?

I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.

Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.

Old age: The estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours into the Great Sea.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.