"He had at last discovered that love had no pith in it, and that the projection of one own's feelings upon the images of a beloved was in the long run, an act of self-mutilation."

"The art of prose governed by syncopated thinking; for thoughts curdle in the heart if not expressed. An idea is like a rare bird which cannot be seen. What one sees is the trembling of the branch it has just left."

"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think."

"Brazil is bigger than Europe, wilder than Africa, and weirder than Baffin Land."

"Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist."

"Lovers can find nothing to say to each other that has not been said and unsaid a thousand times over. Kisses were invented to translate such nothings into wounds (I)"

"Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked."

"It's unthinkable not to love — you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin."

"The appalling thing is the degree of charity women are capable of. You see it all the time … love lavished on absolute fools. Love's a charity ward, you know."

"The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the inventions of Spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in sheltered places, and now the wind unpacking the great planes, ransacking the great planes… I have escaped to this island with a few books and the child — Melissa’s child. I do not know why I use the word ‘escape’. The villagers say jokingly that only a sick man would choose such a remote place to rebuild. Well, then, I have come here to heal myself, if you like to put it that way…."

"I think often, and never without a certain fear of Nessim's love for Justine. [-] It coloured his unhappiness with a kind of ecstasy [-] Yet one touch of humour would have saved him from such dreadful comprehensive suffering."

"I return link by link along the iron chains of memory to the city which we inhabited so briefly together:the city which used us as its flora-precipitated in us conflicts which were hers and which we mistook for our own: beloved Alexandria!"

"I remember Nessim once saying [-] that Alexandria was the great winepress of love; those who emerged from it were the sick men, the solitaries, the prophets — I mean all who have been deeply wounded in their sex."

"Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold – the meaning of the pattern. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential—the imagination."

"There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature."

"That house with its remoteness and the islands going down like soft gongs all the time into the amazing blue, and I shall never,never ever forget a youth spent there, discovered by accident. It was pure gold. But then of course … youth does mean happiness, it does mean love, and that's something you can't get over."

"It's only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdry that you can get tenderness."

"His [a terrorist's] primary objective is not battle. It is to bring down upon the community in general a reprisal for his wrongs, in the hope that the fury and resentment roused by punishment meted out to the innocent will gradually swell the ranks of those from whom he will draw further recruits."

"When flowing cups run swiftly round, With no allaying Thames, Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames; When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, Fishes that tipple in the deep Know no such liberty."

"When flowing cups pass swiftly round With no allaying Thames."

"When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye, The gods that wanton in the air Know no such liberty."

"Oh, could you view the melody Of every grace And music of her face, You'd drop a tear; Seeing more harmony In her bright eye Than now you hear."

"Then, if when I have lov’d my round, Thou prov’st the pleasant she, With spoils of meaner beauties crown’d I laden will return to thee, Ev’n sated with variety."

"Here we’ll strip and cool our fire In cream below, in milk-baths higher; And when all wells are drawn dry, I’ll drink a tear out of thine eye."

"Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more."

"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind, That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind, To war and arms I fly."

"Though Seas and Land betwixt us both, Our Faith and Troth, Like separated soules, All time and space controules: Above the highest sphere wee meet Unseene, unknowne, and greet as Angels greet."

"If to be absent were to be Away from thee; Or that when I am gone, You and I were alone; Then, my Lucasta, might I crave Pity from blust'ring wind, or swallowing wave."

"TELL me not Sweet I am unkind, That from the Nunnery Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind, To War and Armes I fly. True; a new Mistresse now I chase The first Foe in the Field And with a stronger Faith imbrace A Sword, a Horse, a Shield. *Yet this Inconstancy is such, As you too shall adore I could not love thee Dear so much, Loved I not honor more."

"Poor verdant fool, and now green ice! thy joys, Large and as lasting as thy perch of grass, Bid us lay in ‘gainst winter rain, and poise Their floods with an o’erflowing glass."

"Love, then unstinted, Love did sip, And cherries plucked fresh from the lip; On cheeks and roses free he fed; Lasses like autumn plums did drop, And lads indifferently did crop A flower and a maidenhead."

"Stone walls doe not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Mindes innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedome in my love, And in my soule am free, Angels alone that sore above Enjoy such liberty."

"Then Love, I beg, when next thou takest thy bow, Thy angry shafts, and dost heart-chasing go, Pass rascal deer, strike me the largest doe."

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above Enjoy such liberty."

"Fishes that tipple in the deep, Know no such liberty."