“Watching him is intoxicating. I couldn’t dream up a more beautiful man.”

“Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”

“View, Pigeon,” he said, mumbling something inaudible before his breathing returned to slow and deep.I couldn’t help but watch him sleep; knowing he was dreaming about me sent a thrill through my veins that I couldn’t explain.”

“To fly up to the sky and watch the earth is beautiful; to fly down to the earth and watch the sky is even more beautiful!”

“Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”

“And therefore I looked down into the great pity of a person’s life on this earth. I don’t mean that we all end up dead, that’s not the great pity. I mean that he couldn’t tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t tell him what was real.”