“Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advised?Known unto these, and to myself disguised?I'll say as they say, and persever so,And in this mist at all adventures go.”

“Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should’st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can’st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad?”

“TRUE! – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily – how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

“Beyond the earth,beyond the farthest skiesI try to find Heaven and Hell.Then I hear a solemn voice that says:"Heaven and hell are inside.”

“I have known heaven, and now I am in hell, and there are mimes.”

“I am not mad. I am eccentric perhaps--at least certain people say so; but as regards my profession. I am very much as one says, 'all there.”