“sincere love that makes her beloved one happy”

“Always remember that you are unique. Just like everybody else.”

“It is still news to her that passioncould steer her wrongthough she went down, a thousand timesstrung outacross railroad tracks, off bridgesunder cars, or stiffglass bottle still in hand, hair softon greasy pillows, still it isnews she cannot follow love (hisburning footsteps in blue crystalsnow) & stillcome out all right.”

“Tancredi and Angelica were passing in front of them at that moment, his gloved right hand on her waist, their outspread arms interlaced, their eyes gazing into each other's. The black of his tail coat, the pink of her dress, combining formed a kind of strange jewel. They were the most moving sight there, two young people in love dancing together, blind to each other's defects, deaf to the warnings of fate, deluding themselves that the whole course of their lives would be as smooth as the ballroom floor, unknowning actors made to play the parts of Juliet and Romeo by a director who had concealed the fact that tomb and poison were already in the script. Neither of them was good, each full of self-interest, swollen with secret aims; yet there was something sweet and touching about them both; those murky but ingenuous ambitions of theirs were obliterated by the words of jesting tenderness he was murmuring in her ear, by the scent of her hair, by the mutual clasp of those bodies of theirs destined to die. . . For them death was purely an intellectual concept, a fact of knowledge as it were and no more, not an experience which pierced the marrow of their bones. Death, oh yes, it existed of course, but it was something that happened to others. The thought occurred to Don Fabrizio that it was ignorance of this supreme consolation that made the young feel sorrows much more sharply than the old; the latter are nearer the safety exit. ”

“More or Less Love Poems #11:No babeWe'd neverSwing together butthe syncopationwould be something wild”

“In the fifties… we were so busy being cool that we didn’t know how to say the word love”

“Madam, I assure you that you are dealing with two gentleman of the highest propriety and social standing.When one contemplates the deeds that are daily done in society's name, such a description is no high recommendation.”