“Beauty! Art! Wit!Wonderment! Humility!Arrogance! Style!Virtue! Decency!Patience!And all the others,Gone, trampled by theNewly-polished jack bootsOf the clog-suited society.I'm a stranger here, fromAnother planet;Not spotted yet, butGetting peculiar stares>Forbidden entrance toAll the places whereAir remains,Where green is trueand water unmolested.In any other time,(Excepting Attila's)I'd be a hero.Why, they'd even nameAn alley after meAnd put a blotting-paperPlaque on all my doors.Not because I was greatBut because I insisted onAll the words and ways rejected byThose who wait ferallyIn the ancient trees.”

“When you’re young, no matter how many unpleasant things have happened to you (unless by that time you’ve become hopelessly neurotic), hope returns daily, even hourly. The sight of a beautiful person, bird, tree, house, flower can lift your spirits like a thermal does the wings of a gliding gull!”

“Give me that warm feeling,That makes me believe again.Give me that soft answer,The kind you gave me way back when.Give me some true kindness,That brightens the sky again.Give me the best that's in you,And encouragement now and then.Dust off those long-lost manners!Bury ambition and guile!Unfurl those lovely bannersOf virtue and laughter and style!Give me that warm feeling,Take off that impersonal glove.Remember, remember we're dealingWith that fair and rare thing called love!”

“There was no ambition to be famous, no desire to have pieces played by famous orchestras, no secret wish for commissions or prizes or for being “taken up” by prominent art lovers. I simply hoped I could learn to do something well.”

“I'm still trying to find the words to heal you, To take your pain and make it all my ownSo your beautiful eyes can smile,So you can be at peace. And now that Fate has intervened,Conspired to draw us together,I can't resist the lure of your eyes,The temptation of you beauty,The siren song of you voiceWhispering my nameIn the dark comfort between my sheets.I can't resist you, baby,Because I'm falling still, I'm falling into you.”

“Just because your electronics are better than ours, you aren't necessarily superior in any way. Look, imagine that you humans are a man in LA with a brand-new Trujillo and we are a nuhp in New York with a beat-up old Ford. The two fellows start driving toward St. Louis. Now, the guy in the Trujillo is doing 120 on the interstates, and the guy in the Ford is putting along at 55; but the human in the Trujillo stops in Vegas and puts all of his gas money down the hole of a blackjack table, and the determined little nuhp cruises along for days until at last he reaches his goal. It's all a matter of superior intellect and the will to succeed. Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have.”

“I wonder now… were my tears for Alex and Al and all the others who had gone and who were yet to go? Or was I weeping for myself…and those who would remain?”