Roman Payne

“Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or en...”

“Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.”

“It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, but it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: music, laughter, the physics of falling leaves, automobiles, holding hands, the scent o...”

“I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals...”

“It’s not that we have to quit this life one day, it’s how many things we have to quit all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, music, the physics of falling leaves, vanilla and jasmine, popp...”

“In life, more than in anything else, it isn’t easy to end up alive.”

“Ô, Wanderess, Wanderess When did you feel your most euphoric kiss? Was I the source of your greatest bliss?”

“The day came when she discovered sex, sensuality, and literature; she said, 'I submit! Let my life be henceforth ruled by poetry. Let me reign as the queen of my dreams until I become nothin...”

“I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)... 'I spoke...”

“We were hooked when we woke. We had arms for each other. But I yearned to resume My dreams of another.”

“When I met a truly beautiful girl, I would tell her that if she spent the night with me, I would write a novel or a story about her. This usually worked; and if her name was to be in the tit...”

“It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchi...”

“The season was waning fast Our nights were growing cold at last I took her to bed with silk and song, 'Lay still, my love, I won’t be long; I must prepare my body for passion.' 'O, your body...”

“I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, I’d seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common...”

“With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair.”

“So the nymphs they spoke, we kissed and laid. By noontime’s hour our love was made. Like braided chains of crocus stems, we lay entwined, I laid with them. Our breath, one glassy, tideless s...”

“I like the posture, but not the yoga. I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sle...”

“In the boundaryless forests, there’re dancers of nude. Yet in the confines of pasture, there’s promise of food. On which is your side? Ô, but tarry and bide, ere you decide, in both do confi...”

“Did I live the spring I’d sought? It’s true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat...”

“Be there a picnic for the devil, an orgy for the satyr, and a wedding for the bride.”