“Failing and Flying"Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.It's the same when love comes to an end,or the marriage fails and people saythey knew it was a mistake, that everybodysaid it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anythingworth doing is worth doing badly.Like being there by that summer oceanon the other side of the island whilelove was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights thatanyone could tell you they would never last.Every morning she was asleep in my bedlike a visitation, the gentleness in herlike antelope standing in the dawn mist.Each afternoon I watched her coming backthrough the hot stony field after swimming,the sea light behind her and the huge skyon the other side of that. Listened to herwhile we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people whocame back from Provence (when it was Provence)and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,but just coming to the end of his triumph.”

“I believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.”

“But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.”

“Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.”

“I couldn’t take my eyes off the little dark girl and the way, like a queen, she walked around and was even reduced by the sullen bartender to menial tasks such as bringing us drinks and sweeping the back. Of all the girls in there she needed the money most; maybe her mother had come to get money from her for her little infant/ sisters and brothers. It never, never occurred to me just to approach her and give her some money. I have a feeling she would have taken it with a degree of scorn, and scorn from the likes of her made me flinch. In my madness I was actually in love with her for the few hours it all lasted; it was the same unmistakable ache and stab across the mind, the same sighs, the same pain, and above all the same reluctance and fear to approach. Strange that Neal and Frank also failed to approach her; her unimpeachable dignity was the thing that made her poor in a wild old whorehouse, and think of that. At one point I saw Neal leaning like a statue toward her, ready to fly, and befuddlement cross his face as she glanced coolly and imperiously his way and he stopped rubbing his belly and gaped and finally bowed his head. For she was the queen.”

“The Abandoned ValleyCan you understand being alone so longyou would go out in the middle of the nightand put a bucket into the wellso you could feel something down theretug at the other end of the rope?”

“i am standing upon the seashore. a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. she is an object of beauty and strength. i stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. then someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" "gone where?" gone from my sight. that is all. she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port. her diminished size is in me, not in her. and just at the moment when someone at my side says: "there, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "here she comes!" and that is dying.”