“Which is worse, past or future? Neither. I will fold up my mind like a leaf and drift on this stream over the brink. Which will be soon, and then the dark, and then be done with this ugliness...”

“Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption.”

“Which of my two critics was I to believe? I didn't worry about it and very soon made up my mind they were both idiots.”

“And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.”

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.”

“I have sent books and music there, and all / Those instruments with which high spirits call / The future from its cradle, and the past / Out of its grave, and make the present last / In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, / Folded within their own eternity.”