“Children who paddle where the ocean bed shelves steeplyMust take great care they do not, Paddle too deeply.'Thus spake the awful aging coupleWhose heart the years had turned to rubble.But the little children, to save any bother,Let it in at one ear and out at the other.”

“And soon all our minds will be flat as a pancake,With no room for genius exaltation or heartache.And our children and theirs will preen, smirk and chatter,With not even the sense to ask what is the matter.”

“My heart was full of softening showers,I used to swing like this for hours,I did not care for war or death,I was glad to draw my breath.”

“I'll have your heart, if not by gift my knife Shall carve it out. I'll have your heart, your life.”

“Marriage I thinkFor womenIs the best of opiates.It kills the thoughtsThat think about the thoughts,It is the best of opiates.So said Maria.But too long in solitude she'd dwelt,And too long her thoughts had feltTheir strength. So when the man drew near,Out popped her thoughts and covered him with fear.Poor Maria! Better that she had kept her thoughts on a chain,For now she's alone again and all in pain;She sighs for the man that went and the thoughts that stayTo trouble her dreams by night and her dreams by day.”

“But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever....”

“If I lie down on my bed I must be here,But if I lie down in my grave I may be elsewhere.”