“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title.

Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.

I don’t believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun.

Marvelous are the innocent.

Fear no more, says the heart.

She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day.

But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people.

I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.

And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one.

I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.

Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

Consolation for those moments when you can’t tell whether you’re the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.

For this moment, this one moment, we are together. I press you to me. Come, pain, feed on me. Bury your fangs in my flesh. Tear me asunder. I sob, I sob.

There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

The bud of victory is always in the truth.

And he nipped them in the bud, right at the end

He’s going on and on and on, and finally he stops. It’s just total horror, and the camera’s still rolling. You can hear it, sort of a grinding noise. And the director says, “Anything else, Bud?”

The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flow’r. Blind unbelief is sure to err And scan His work in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain.

The principle of order in me, around me, and in the world… I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.

The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.

How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.