“But my hand was too small to do the gathering. [Epic of Gilgamesh, p. 79]”

“You have known, O Gilgamesh,What interests me,To drink from the Well of Immortality.Which means to make the deadRise from their gravesAnd the prisoners from their cellsThe sinners from their sins.I think love's kiss kills our heart of flesh.It is the only way to eternal life,Which should be unbearable if livedAmong the dying flowersAnd the shrieking farewellsOf the overstretched arms of our spoiled hopes.”

“Don't moralize at me! I have no loveFor images, old gods, prophetic words.I want to talk to Utnapishtim!Tell me how.”

“He looked at the walls,Awed at the heightsHis people had achievedAnd for a moment -- just a moment --All that lay behind himPassed from view.”

“Do not let the endless succession of small things crowd great ideals out of sight and out of mind.”

“I think women gather up into themselves what they have been through much more than we (men) do. To them, what is past becomes a real part of them, as much a part of them as a limb; to us it's always something external, at the best the rung of a ladder, at the worst a weight on the heel.”

“I handed him my heart, soul, and spirit on a silver platter and he crushed them into a million pieces.”