"Drive until you lose the road

"There indeed, only a few paces off, stood one of them, in Panama hat and yellow boots, seriously, softly, absorbedly, for all that he was watched by ten little boys, with an air of profound contentment on his round red face, gazing, and then, when he gazed, dipping; imbuing the tip of his brush in some soft mound of green or pink."

"They tried to bury me. They didn't realise I was a seed."

"What I did experience when alone was a sort of general neurotic horror, a common attack of nerves and self-loathing magnified to the power of ten. Every cruel or fatuous thing I'd ever said came back to me with an amplified clarity, no matter how I talked to myself or jerked my head to shake the thoughts away: old insults and guilts and embarrassments stretching clear back to childhood — the crippled boy I'd made fun of, the Easter chick I'd squeezed to death — paraded before me one by one, in vivid and mordant splendor."

'Why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me. "If they only knew!" I screamed inside. "If they only knew what I had within me. How much I can pour out, how much I have to say, how much I have inside. If they only knew!"'

”So some random light directing them with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse even, with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, the little airs mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here surely, they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those fumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can neither touch nor destroy. Upon which, wearily, ghostlily, as if they had feather-light fingers and the light persistency of feathers, they would look, once, on the shut eyes, and the loosely clasping fingers, and fold their garments wearily and disappear. And so, nosing, rubbing, they went to the window on the staircase, to the servants’ bedrooms, to the boxes in the attics; descending, blanched the apples on the dining-room table, fumbled the petals of roses, tried the picture on the easel, brushed the mat and blew a little sand along the floor. At length, desisting, all ceased together, gathered together, all sighed together; all together gave off an aimless gust of lamentation to which some door in the kitchen replied; swung wide; admitted nothing; and slammed to.

"Kan du förstå, att det finns något som det här stället. Med blå sjöar, som solen lyser på och glittrar på och dansar på, och ut över vattnet stå flammande träd och spegla sig – aspar och björkar som eldslågor, och vassar, som susa. Som stå och susa alldeles för sig själva och låtsas, att det är vind. Men det är ingen vind. Röken går rätt upp från skorstenen och bara darrar i små, små böjningar intill pipan, innan den stället sig rakt mot himlen. Jag skulle vilja vara en rök, som steg mot himlen i dag – steg och steg, tills den med ett är borta, tills den är upplöst i allt det blå och gyllene däruppe. Eller jag skulle vilja vara ett strå i vassen, ett guldstrå bland de andra och susa med dem. Eller ett rött aspblad i skalv över vattnet. Eller en sten, eller lite mossa, eller vad som helst – bara jag hörde till."

"And by strange alchemy of brain His pleasures always turn'd to pain — His naivete to wild desire — His wit to love –his wine to fire– And so, being young and dipt in folly I fell in love with melancholy"

"Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice."

"She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies."

"Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye."

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."

"O sweet spontaneous earth how often have the doting fingers of prurient philosophers pinched and poked thee (but true to the incomparable couch of death thy rhythmic lover thou answerest them only with spring)"

"Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze, Divesting herself of her golden shift..."

"If I set fire to these walls right now,