“What's this flesh? A little cruded milkFantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than thosePaper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible,Since our is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever seen A lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this worldIs like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads Like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge Of the small compass of our prison.”

“Do you not weep? Other sins only speak, murder shreaks out:The element of water moistens the earth,But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.”

“Call for the robin-red-breast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flow'rs do coverThe friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse and the mole,To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm,And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm,But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,For with his nails he'll dig them up again.Let holy Church receive him duly,Since he paid the church-tithes truly.”

“I was caged in our body and caged in his arms and, somehow, the former was the real prison.”

“The chiefest action for a man of great spirit is never to be out of action... the soul was never put into the body to stand still.”

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lustLike diamonds we are cut with our own dust”

“Eating connects us to our histories as much as it connects our souls to our bodies, our bodies to the earth.”