MortalityOh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,He passes from life to his rest in the grave.The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,Be scattered around, and together be laid;And the young and the old, the low and the high,Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.'Tis the wink of an eye - 'tis the draught of a breath -From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroudOh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Lussurioso: "Welcome, be not far off, we must be better acquainted. Push, be bold with us, thy hand!"Vindice: "With all my heart, i'faith. How dost, sweet musk-cat? When shall we lie together?"Lussurioso: (aside) "Wondrous knave!Gather him into boldness? 'Sfoot, the slave'sAlready as familiar as an ague,And shakes me at his pleasure! -- Friend, I canForget myself in private, but elsewhere,I pray do you remember be."Vindice: "Oh, very well, sir.I conster myself saucy."Lussurioso: "What hast been? What profession?"Vindice: "A bone-setter."Lussurioso: "A bone-setter!"Vindice: "A bawd, my lord, one that sets bones together."Lussurioso: (aside) "Notable bluntness!

There's got to be more to life than just living," Foyle said to the robot."Then find it for yourself, sir. Don't ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.""Why can't we all move forward together?""Because you're all different. You're not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.""Who leads?""The men who must...driven men, compelled men.""Freak men.""You're all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That's its hope and glory.""Thank you very much.""My pleasure, sir.""You've saved the day.""Always a lovely day somewhere, sir," the robot beamed. Then it fizzed, jangled, and collapsed.

I do not know, really, how we will survive without places like the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon to visit. Once in a lifetime, even, is enough. To feel the stripping down, an ebb of the press of conventional time, a radical change of proportion, an unspoken respect for others that elicits keen emotional pleasure, a quick intimate pounding of the heart.The living of life, any life, involves great and private pain, much of which we share with no one. In such places as the Inner Gorge the pain trails away from us. It is not so quiet there or so removed that you can hear yourself think, that you would even wish to; that comes later. You can hear your heart beat. That comes first.

We didn’t see anyone that day. We had no expectations. Everything was spontaneous. There wasn’t a single moment of stress. We laughed like crazy all afternoon – though I couldn’t tell you what about. And there was definitely something in the air – call it magic if you like – because that was the happiest Christmas any of us could remember, which makes me think that perhaps, like luck, magic is something we can make for ourselves. It isn’t something you can buy. It doesn’t come as standard. And you don’t need to plan, or to overspend, or to wrack your brains trying to come up with some extraordinary way to celebrate. Because sometimes it’s the little things that bring us the greatest pleasure.

The stranger was still smiling. He transformed himself into a rose bush and entwined me. My Christian education meant that ever since childhood I have had a horror of vice and it was not without a quite understandable terror that I discerned the pleasure I felt in the embrace of this vigorous bush whose branches gradually mingled with my limbs, my hair and my looks. When one of its flowers came apart in my mouth, I could feel myself grasping the sorcerer in my arms in my turn. He was transformed into a torrent, and I was a barge, into desert and I was smoke, into a car and I was a road, into a man and I was a woman. 'What we are doing is very wrong,' he said and was off.

In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . . You--only you--will have stars that can laugh! ...And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure . . . And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look at at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh!' And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you . . .

I have always enjoyed kissing the girls I've kissed in the past but only because I was attracted to them. It didn't really have anything to do with them in particular.When I kissed all the other girls, I felt pleasure. That's why people enjoy kissing, because it feels good.But when you like to kiss someone because of who she is, the difference isn't found in the pleasure.The difference is found in the pain you feel when you're not kissing her.It doesn't hurt when I'm not kissing any of the other girls I've kissed. It only hurts when I'm not kissing Rachel.Maybe this explains why falling in love is so damn painful.I like kissing you, Rachel.

dear little baby of the folks I work for, I got a present for you .. my whole damn life! I'm handin' it over to you & your ma & pa. if you got no money to pay, I wanna stay anyhow, my pleasure is to wait on you forever. to hell with my children & hooray for you!.. you stayin' up all night fixin' up Character Parts for me! givin' 'em what you call dignity! dignity! you know what your dignity is? a black straw hat with a flower stickin' up in front, hands folded cross my stomach, sayin' the same damn fool things .. only nice & easy & proper!" --trouble in mind (1955)

Evidently, a given object took no particular amount of time to draw; instead the artist took the time, or didn’t take it, at pleasure. And,similarly, things themselves possessed no fixed and intrinsic amount of interest; instead things were interesting as long as you had attention to give them. How long does it take to draw a baseball mitt? As much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined. For many days, so long as you want to keep drawing that mitt, and studying that mitt, there will always be a new and finer layer of distinctions to draw out and lay in. Your attention discovers—seems thereby to produce—an array of interesting features in any object, like a lamp.