“The madman bum and angel beat in time with the absolute heart of the poem butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years”

“Only the madman is absolutely sure.”

“Could a body broken and blood spilled two thousand years ago restore my own damaged life?”

“Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems.”

“Dan didn't know how violently he was biting. Just the absolute closeness. Once upon a time he'd hated that body, smashed it, kicked it, beat it into a bleeding pulp, but now he wanted to crawl into it, or kill it, and maim it, to possess it, eat, tear, destroy it, to take it and never leave it again.His. The body was his, the man was his. His, his, his alone!”

“Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.”