“To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment”

“The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.”

“Her head fell back as she cried out. She reached for him, drawing him down to her, loving the weight of him, the heaviness of him inside her, driving away memory, making the taunting vision of his fall shatter into a thousand pieces even as she herself did, again and again. Firelight gleamed, revealing and concealing the ancient poetry of possession.Flame-burnishing limbs entwined, voices cried out together, and fierce driving strength and power yielded up their tribute, there in the dark heart of the earth's tomb.”

“Little John, watching her standing next to her brother, half-glowering in the old Cecil manner and half-comforted by Robin's words, saw for a moment what it had been like for her as Will's litter sister. Some of what she was good at, and some of what she was bad at, as his pupil, came clear to him in that moment; and something else came clear to him too, but he set it aside so quickly that he allowed himself not to recognize it for what it was.”

“True poetry ought to be secret and clandestine, concealed like a prohibited voice of dissent, while at the same time it should speak to everyone.”

“Finally, I felt him, exactly where he was meant to be. Barely nudging inside, just the feeling of him entering me was earth-shattering. My own needs quieted for the moment, I watched his face as he began to press inside me for the first time. His eyes bore into mine as I cradled his face in my hands. He looked as though he wanted to say something, and I wondered. What words would we speak, what wonderfully loving things would we say to commemorate this moment?"Hi.""Hi.”