“Its a bit mad. Too bad, I mean, that getting to know each just for a fleeting second Must be replaced by unperfect knowledge of the featureless wholeLike some pocket history of the world, so generalAs to constitute a sob or wail”

“I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free.”

“The facts of history have been too well rehearsed (I'm speaking needless to say not of written history but the oral kind that goes on in you without your having to do anything about it). . .”

“I'm heading for a clean-named placelike Wisconsin, and mad as a jack-o'-lantern, will get therewithout help and nosy proclivities.”

“What name do I have for you?Certainly there is no name for youIn the sense that the stars have namesThat somehow fit them. Just walking around,An object of curiosity to some,But you are too preoccupiedBy the secret smudge in the back of your soulTo say much and wander around,Smiling to yourself and others.It gets to be kind of lonelyBut at the same time off-putting.Counterproductive, as you realize once againThat the longest way is the most efficient way,The one that looped among islands, andYou always seemed to be traveling in a circle.And now that the end is nearThe segments of the trip swing open like an orange.There is light in there and mystery and food.Come see it.Come not for me but it.But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.”

“The genius of Cornell is that he sees and enables us to see with the eyes of childhood, before our vision got clouded by experience, when objects like a rubber ball or a pocket mirror seemed charged with meaning, and a marble rolling across a wooden floor could be as portentous as a passing comet.”

“A little bunny or some kind of ferret was probablythere too, and bore witness as only rodents can.”