“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.”

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

“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.”

“And as Dad said to me, 'You can't always stop people from being mean. But you can stop them from making you mean.”

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

“...like Ariel released from his tree prison, a beautiful human being leaps out of many a human prison at the touch of sympathy .”

“And so must learn to love with our mouths and voices, as well as with our eyes, flesh, heart, brains, and with everything we have, right down to our toenails. There is not anything about us that cannot love, and that is not called to love, and that is not destined to be turned, conformed, and reduced to pure love. It ...is the priceless deposit left by the burning away of selfishness.”