“..., its unity, unfolding through all the panels, would have given the illusion of an endless whole, of water without a horizon or bank; nerves tense from work would be relaxed there...and to him who lived in the room it would have offered the refuge of a peaceable meditation in the center of a flowering aquarium.”

“But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.”

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.”

“The tavern haunter wanders lonely in a desertAnd sees the whole world as a mirage.The desert is limitless and endless --No one has seen its beginning or its end,And even if you wandered in it a hundred yearsYou would not find yourself, or anyone else.Those who live there have no feet or heads,Are neither "believers" nor "unbelievers."Drunk on the wine of selflessness,They have given up good and evil alike.Drunk, without lips or mouth, on TruthThey have thrown away all thoughts of name and fame,All talk of wonders, visions, spiritual states,Dreams, secret rooms, lights, miracles.”

“I would have given him everything. I would have pulled down planets to make our life work.”

“If we'd put them in a vase in the living room, they would have been everyone's flowers. I wanted them to be my flowers.”