“There’s no vocabulary For love within a family, love that’s lived in But not looked at, love within the light of which All else is seen, the love within which All other love finds speech. This love is silent.”

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us and we drown.

It’s not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them.

music heard so deeply That it is not heard at all, but you are the music While the music lasts.

Do I dare Disturb the universe?

What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone.

Whatever you think, be sure it is what you think; whatever you want, be sure that is what you want; whatever you feel, be sure that is what you feel.

We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.

I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter.

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.