“Whenever Richard Cory went down town,we people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown,clean favored, and imperially slim.And he was always quietly arrayed,and he was always human when he talked;but still he fluttered pulses when he said,"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -And admirably schooled in every grace:In fine, we thought that he was everythingto make us wish that we were in his place.So on we worked, and waited for the light,and went without the meat, and cursed the bread;And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet through his head.”

“Whenever Richard Cory went down town,We people on the pavement looked at him:He was a gentleman from sole to crown,Clean favored, imperially slim.And he was always quietly arrayed,And he was always human when he talked;But still he fluttered pulses when he said,'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--And admirably schooled in every grace:In fine, we thought that he was everythingTo make us wish that we were in his place.So on we worked, and waited for the light,And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,Went home and put a bullet through his head.”

“Alone, he saw the slanting waves roll in, Each to its impotent annihilation In a long wash of foam, until the sound Become for him a warning and a torture, Like a malign reproof reiterating In vain its cold and only sound of doom.”

“She fears him, and will always askWhat fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging maskAll reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fearsAre less than are the downward yearsDrawn slowly to the foamless weirsOf age, were she to lose him.”

“And thus we all are nighingThe truth we fear to know:Death will end our cryingFor friends that come and go.”

“Some of us are so sharp," he [Mr. Vandemar] said as he leaned in closer to Richard, went up on tiptoes into Richard's face, "we could just cut ourselves.”

“To some will come a time when change itself is beauty, if not heaven.”