“Tell this to ladies: how a hero manAssail a thick and scandalous giantWho casts true shadow in the sun,And die, but play no truant.This is more horrible: that the darling eggOf the chosen people hatch a creatureOf noblest mind and powerful legWho cannot fathom nor perform his nature.”

“Piazza Piece—I am a gentleman in a dustcoat tryingTo make you hear. Your ears are soft and smallAnd listen to an old man not at all,They want the young men's whispering and sighing.But see the roses on your trellis dyingAnd hear the spectral singing of the moon;For I must have my lovely lady soon,I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.—I am a lady young in beauty waitingUntil my truelove comes, and then we kiss.But what gray man among the vines is thisWhose words are dry and faint as in a dream?Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!I am a lady young in beauty waiting.”

“The silence of a convent at night is the silence of the grave. Too far removed from the busy world without for external sounds to penetrate the thick walls, whilst within no slamming door, nor wandering foot, nor sacrilegious voice breaks in upon the stillness, the slightest noise strikes upon the ear with a fearful distinctness. ("The Monk's Story")”

“I can't tell you how much I hated him. Not the soap but his sermons and him acting like he was out for the good of everyone....-Mississippi Trial 1955”

“Did you know that all the best people belong to country clubs? If you can afford the $75,000 fee to get in and if you don’t mind people coming to check out your house and if you think it’s OK to post your name in the clubhouse for approval from all the other members and you feel it is obscene to show your shoulders, you will definitely get in and be surrounded by the best people in town”

“I emerged into the sticky-hot evening to find Ricky smoking on the hood of his battered car. Something about his mud-encrusted boots and the way he let smoke curl from his lips and how the sinking sun lit his green hair reminded me of a punk, redneck James Dean. He was all of those things, a bizarre cross-pollination of subcultures possible only in South Florida.”

“Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.”