“Said the lion to the lioness - "when you are amber dust - No more a raging fire like the heat of the sun(no liking but all lust) - Remember still the flowering of the amber bloodand bone,the rippling of bright muscles likea sea,Remember the rose-prickles of bright pawsThough we shall mate no moreTill the fire of that sun and the moon - Cold bone are one"Said the skeleton lying upon thesands of time - "The great gold planet thatis the mourning heatof the sunIs greater than all gold, more powerfulThan the tawny body of a lion that fireconsumesLike all that grows or leaps...sois the heart.More powerful than all dust. OnceI was herculesOr Samson, strong as the pillars of theseas:But the flames of the heartConsumed me, andthe mindIs but a foolish wind.”

“Cold be hand and heart and bone, and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead. In the black wind the stars shall die, and still on gold here let them lie, till the dark lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land.”

“There is a difference between this world and the world of Faery, but it is not immediately perceptible. Everything that is here is there, but the things that are there are better than those that are here. All things that are bright are there brighter. There is more gold in the sun and more silver in the moon of that land. There is more scent in the flowers, more savour in the fruit. There is more comeliness in the men and more tenderness in the women. Everything in Faery is better by this one wonderful degree, and it is by this betterness you will know that you are there if you should ever happen to get there.”

“There were no lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind — tawny, great, and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-colored moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air.”

“More than the choking heat, more than the blinding flames that rise up into the night sky, more than the endlessly leaping colours that change shape with every moment, more than all of these is the transforming power of fire. Fire takes solid wooden beams and reduces them to charcoal. It licks at everything with a scarlet tongue and leaves it black. It spreads like the folds of a golden robe over human bodies and what is left is gray and chalky: ash, blown up and up by every breath of wind only to fall like dust on the ground. When it is burning most fiercely, it seems that it might go on forever and devour everything in its path. It does not cower and withdraw in front of princes. Palace and hovel alike are good fuel and nothing more. It is unstoppable. And when it has moved, what remains is desolation.”

“We all have someone we think shines so much more than we do that we are not even a moon to their sun, but a dead little rock floating in space next to their gold and their blaze.”