“Tell me a story. / In this century, and moment, of mania, tell me a story. / Make it a story of great distances, and starlight. / The name of the story will be time, / But you must not speak its name. / Tell me a story of deep delight.”

“After a great blow, or crisis, after the first shock and then after the nerves have stopped screaming and twitching, you settle down to the new condition of things and feel that all possibility of change has been used up. You adjust yourself, and are sure that the new equilibrium is for eternity. . . But if anything is certain it is that no story is ever over, for the story which we think is over is only a chapter in a story which will not be over, and it isn't the game that is over, it is just an inning, and that game has a lot more than nine innings. When the game stops it will be called on account of darkness. But it is a long day.”

“In America they have to know just what you are-- novelist, poet, playwright... Well, I've been all of them... I think poems and novels and stories spring from the same seed. It's not like, say, playing polo and knitting.”

“If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.”

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story”

“(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.)”

“Tell me a story then...keep me occupied.""A story?...What makes you think I can tell a story?""Insight," said the king, "Go on.”