“My Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have. I hesitate to go out. If you opened the little gate, I would not hop away—but oh how I sing in my gold cage.”

“What is it my dear?"Ah, how can we bear it?"Bear what?"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"We can be quiet together, and pretend - since it is only the beginning - that we have all the time in the world."And every day we shall have less. And then none."Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”

“I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.”

“So—I went on, on my own—deeper and deeper into the silent Tunnel of the Ride—not so sure of where I was and yet not anxious either, not concerned about my companions nor even about the nearness of—certain friends. The trees were beech, and the buds, just breaking, fiercely brilliant, and the new, the renewed light on them—intermittent diamond—but the depths were dark, a silent Nave. And no birds sang, or I heard none, no woodpecker tapped, no thrush whistled or hopped. And I listened to the increasing Quiet—and my horse went softly on the beech-mast—which was wet after rain—not crackling, a little sodden, not wet enough to plash. And I had the sensation, common enough, at least to me, that I was moving out of time, that the way, narrow and dark-dappled, stretched away indifferently before and behind, and that I was who I had been and what I would become—all at once, all wound in one—and I moved onward indifferently, since it was all one, whether I came or went, or remained still. Now to me such moments are poetry. [Randolph Henry Ash]”

“This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”

“Randolph Henry Ash: “What is it? My dear?”Christabel LaMotte: “Ah, how can we bear it?”Randolph Henry Ash: “Bear what?”Christabel LaMotte: “This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”Randolph Henry Ash: “We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world.”Christabel LaMotte: “And every day we shall have less. And then none.”Randolph Henry Ash: “Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?”Christabel LaMotte: “No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”

“I cannot bear not to know the end of a tale. I will read the most trivial things – once commenced – only out of a feverish greed to be able to swallow the ending – sweet or sour – and to be done with what I need never have embarked on. Are you in my case? Or are you a more discriminating reader? Do you lay aside the unprofitable?”