“a friend of your youth is the only friend you ever have..”

“The Friend of Your Youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you. He sees in his mind a face which does not exist anymore, speaks a name…which belongs to that non-existent face but which by some inane and doddering confusion of the universe is for the moment attached to a not too happily met and boring stranger.”

“(There is always another country and always another place.There is always another name and another face.And the name and the face are you, and youThe name and the face, and the stream you gaze intoWill show the adoring face, show the lips that lift to youAs you lean with the implacable thirst of self,As you lean to the image which is yourself,To set the lip to lip, fix eye on bulging eye,To drink not of the stream but of your deep identity,But water is water and it flows,Under the image on the water the water coils and goesAnd its own beginning and its end only the water knows.There are many countries and the rivers in them-Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Colorado, Pecos, Little Big Horn,And Roll, Missouri, roll.But there is only water in them.And in the new country and in the new, placeThe eyes of the new friend will reflect the new faceAnd his mouth will speak to frameThe syllables of the new nameAnd the name is you and is the agitation of the airAnd is the wind and the wind runs and the wind is everywhere.The name and the face are you.And they are you.Are new.For they have been dipped in the healing flood.For they have been dipped in the redeeming blood.For they have been dipped in TimeAnd Time is only beginningsTime is only and always beginningsAnd is the redemption of our crimeAnd is our Saviour's priceless blood.For Time is always the new place,And no-place.For Time is always the new name and the new face,And no-name and no-face.For Time is motionFor Time is innocenceFor Time is West.)”

“you live through . . . that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life, it is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneous with yours. It is, in other words, History, and what you are is an expression of History.”

“There was only the sound of the July-flies, which seems to be inside your head like it is the grind and whirr of the springs and cogs which are you and which will not stop no matter what you say until they are good and ready.”

“If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.”

“Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but spring out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. You happy foot or you gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God's eye, and the fangs dripping.”