“Wafted by a favouring galeAs one sometimes is in trances,To a height that few can scale,Save by long and weary dances”

“A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship.”

“In the remote towns of the west there are few of the amenities of civilization; there is no sewerage, there are no hospitals, rarely a doctor; the food is dreary and flavourless from long carrying, the water is bad; electricity is for the few who can afford their own plant, roads are mostly non-existent; there are no theatres, no picture shows and few dance halls; and the people are saved from stark insanity by the one strong principle of progress that is ingrained for a thousand miles east, north, south and west of the Dead Heart - the beer is always cold.”

“Sometimes a few birds, a horse, have saved the ruins of an amphitheater.”

“America sometimes resembles, at least from the point of view of a black man, an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show; the same dances, same music, same jokes. One has done (or been) the show so long that one can do it in one’s own sleep.”

“And I must borrow every changing shapeTo find expression ... dance, danceLike a dancing bear,Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance”