The Infinite Library

“They say when you are missing someone that they are probably feeling the same, but I don't think it's possible for you to miss me as much as I'm missing you right now”

“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.”

“After all, my erstwhile dear, My no longer cherished, Need we say it was not love, Just because it perished?”

“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning, but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.”

“Ebb I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.”

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

“Love is Not All Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again; Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would.”

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends - It gives a lovely light.”

“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”

“Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I'll make you little jackets; I'll make you little trousers From his old pants. There'll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco; Dan shall have the pennies To save in his bank; Anne shall have the keys To make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, Though good men die; Anne, eat your breakfast; Dan, take your medicine; Life must go on; I forget just why.”

“Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”

“'Tis not love's going hurts my days, but that it went in little ways.”

“I went to Boston fully expecting to be arrested - arrested by a polizia created by a government that my ancestors rebelled to establish.”

“After all, my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished, need we say it was no love, just because it perished?”

“Stranger, pause and look; From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once was I!”

“Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.”

“Music, my rampart and my only one.”

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.”

“God, I can push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart.”

“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.”

“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”

“My god is all gods in one. When I see a beautiful sunset, I worship the god of Nature; when I see a hidden action brought to light, I worship the god of Truth; when I see a bad man punished and a good man go free, I worship the god of Justice; when I see a penitent forgiven, I worship the god of Mercy.”

“It is high time we found out about this man Cummings. Let us give him every opportunity to show us at once whether he is a genius, a charlatan, or a congenital defective - and get him off our minds.”

“And all the loveliest things there be Come simply, so it seems to me.”

“What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.”

“My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing; Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.”

“TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”

“I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring. Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.”

“Strange how few After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment.”

“The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through.”

“I've written so many verses and keep on writing so many more that I became afraid that if I didn't write them into one big book, I might forget some of them.”

“We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.”

“I love humanity but I hate people.”

“Still must the poet as of old, In barren attic bleak and cold, Starve, freeze, and fashion verses to Such things as flowers and song and you; Still as of old his being give In Beauty's name, while she may live, Beauty that may not die as long As there are flowers and you and song.”

“Music my rampart, and my only one.”

“Now goes under, and I watch it go under, the sun That will not rise again. Today has seen the setting, in your eyes cold and senseless as the sea, Of friendship better than bread, and of bright charity That lifts a man a little above the beasts that run. That this could be! That I should live to see Most vulgar Pride, that stale obstreperous clown, So fitted out with purple robe and crown To stand among his betters! Face to face With outraged me in this once holy place, Where Wisdom was a favoured guest and hunted Truth was harboured out of danger, He bulks enthroned, a lewd, an insupportable stranger! I would have sworn, indeed I swore it: The hills may shift, the waters may decline, Winter may twist the stem from the twig that bore it, But never your love from me, your hand from mine. Now goes under the sun, and I watch it go under. Farewell, sweet light, great wonder! You, too, farewell,-but fare not well enough to dream You have done wisely to invite the night before the darkness came.”

“Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note In me a beauty that was never mine, How first you knew me in a book I wrote, How first you loved me for a written line....”

“My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going.”

“It is not true that life is one damn thing after another- it's one damn thing over and over.”

“The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.”

“And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed, Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?- And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?”

“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.”

“And all at once the heavy night Fell from my eyes and I could see, -- A drenched and dripping apple-tree, A last long line of silver rain, A sky grown clear and blue again. And as I looked a quickening gust Of wind blew up to me and thrust Into my face a miracle Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, -- I know not how such things can be! -- I breathed my soul back into me. Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I And hailed the earth with such a cry As is not heard save from a man Who has been dead, and lives again. About the trees my arms I wound; Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; I raised my quivering arms on high; I laughed and laughed into the sky”

“Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn.”

“And if I loved you Wednesday, well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday - so much is true.”

“I will come back to you, I swear I will; And you will know me still. I shall be only a little taller Than when I went.”

“Second Fig Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”

“To Those Without Pity Cruel of heart, lay down my song. Your reading eyes have done me wrong. Not for you was the pen bitten, And the mind wrung, and the song written.”