“my white plume"- Cyrano de Bergerac”

“Speak to me...be eloquent, be brilliant for me. Improvise! Rhapsodize!... I ask for cream and you give me milk and water... Please gather your dreams together into words. - Roxanne, Cyrano de Bergerac”

“The great error consists in supposing that poetry is an unnatural form of language. We should all like to speak poetry at the moment when we truly live, and if we do not speak it, it is because we have an impediment in our speech. It is not song that is the narrow or artificial thing, it is conversation that is a broken and stammering attempt at song. When we see men in a spiritual extravaganza, like Cyrano de Bergerac, speaking in rhyme, it is not our language disguised or distorted, but our language rounded and made whole.”

“New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village - the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up”

“Cyrano: I can see him there---he grins---He is looking at my nose---that skeleton---What's that you say? Hopeless?---Why, very well!---But a man does not fight merely to win!No---no---better to know one fights in vain!...You there---Who are you? A hundred against one---I know them now, my ancient enemies---Falsehood!...There! There! Prejudice---Compromise---Cowardice---What's that? No! Surrender? No!Never---never!...Ah, you too, Vanity!I knew you would overthrow me in the end---No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!Yes, all my laurels you have riven awayAnd all my roses; yet in spite of you,There is one crown I bear away with me,And to-night, when I enter before God,My salute shall sweep all the stars awayFrom the blue threshold! One thing without stain,Unspotted from the world, in spite of doomMine own!---And that is...Roxane: ---That is...Cyrano: My white plume....”

“All my laurels you have riven away, and my roses; yet in spite of you, there is one crown I bear away with me... One thing without stain, unspotted from the world, in spite of doom mine own! And that is... my white plume.”