“Spring declares itself solely in the quality of the air or the little baskets of flowers that street-sellers bring in from the suburbs; this is a spring that is sold in the market-place.”

“Love should have no alternatives; love should be the sole reason for loving; love should spring of itself.”

“We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the flower grows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring are themselves new to the world, untried and untested. The flower that wilted last year is gone. Petals once fallen are fallen forever. Flowers do not return in the spring, rather they are replaced. It is in this difference between returned and replaced that the price of renewal is paid. And as it is for spring flowers, so it is for us.”

“Meanwhile spring arrived. My old dejection passed away and gave place to the unrest which spring brings with it, full of dreams and vague hopes and desires.”

“I bear a basket lined with grass;I am so light, I am so fair,That men must wonder as I passAnd at the basket that I bear,Where in a newly-drawn green litterSweet flowers I carry, -- sweets for bitter.Lilies I shew you, lilies none,None in Caesar’s gardens blow, --And a quince in hand, -- not oneIs set, because their buds not spring;Spring not, ‘cause world is wintering....”

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”