“One should therefore not rely on mere words, but everywhere search for the intention behind them. (121)”

“One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.”

“But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one's past for such 'turning points', one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.”

“Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions, it is walled and roofed with them.”

“So to the wretched writer I should like to say that there’s one body only whose request for your caresses is not vulgar, is not unchaste, untoward, or impolite: the body of your work itself; for you must remember that your attentions will not merely celebrate a beauty but create one; that yours is love that brings it own birth with it, just as Plato has declared, and that you should therefore give up the blue things of this world in favor of the words which say them”

“with a most intent and searching gaze”