Most writers steal a good thing when they can, and when 'Tis safely got 'Tis worth the winning. The worst of 't is we now and then detect em, they ever dream that we suspect em.

The sea! The sea! The open sea!, The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Oh, the summer night, Has a smile of light, And she sits on a sapphire throne.

O human beauty, what a dream art thou, that we should cast our life and hopes away on thee!

Shadows fall on even the brightest hours.

I 'm on the sea! I 'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be, With the blue above and the blue below, And silence wheresoever I go.

Pity speaks to grief more sweetly than a band of instruments.

Death is the tyrant of the imagination.

The sweetest noise on earth, a woman's tongue; A string which hath no discord.

I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more.

Not the rich viol, trump, cymbal, nor horn, Guitar, nor cittern, nor the pining flute, Are half so sweet as tender human words.

I think about dying every day, because I can't stop thinking about living.

If they saw men swarming up the wall, if they saw the axes chopping at our shields on the wall’s top, then they would join the battle. Men want to be on the winning side.

I'm a hopeless romantic, I say very loudly and proudly. I get a lot of stick for it.

INK, n. A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic, and water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote intellectual crime.

The wisest and best are repulsive, if they are characterized by repulsive manners. Politeness is an easy virtue, costs little, and has great purchasing power.

Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.

She had a dour Presbyterian mind and a code of morals that pinned down and beat the brains out of nearly everything that was pleasant to do.

The Bible is the place where God bears His soul.

I think of me being a painter eventually.

I can't stand that - those women in 'Waiting to Exhale' now. I can't stand them. But that's because I'm 53 and not 33. But what they were experiencing at 33, I identified with it.