“Beauty without the beloved is a like a sword through the heart.”

“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart." [on Lord of the Rings]”

“The question hung unfinished between them, stretched over the desert, emblazoned like a sword that pierced through his heart, through her heart, and out like a bloodied ship mast rising on sandy waves.”

“Lady, your beauty is like that drop of a volcano, that pierces hearts of all men, as if its passing through ice.”

“When the rose is gone and the garden fadedyou will no longer hear the nightingale's song.The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil. The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.If love withholds its strengthening care,the lover is left like a bird without care,the lover is left like a bird without wings.How will I be awake and awareif the light of the Beloved is absent?Love wills that this Word be brought forth.”

“Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there.”