The most poetical thing in the world is not being sick.
Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we think right is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession. There is nothing possible between us but honor and death.
He seemed like a walking blasphemy, a blend of the angel and the ape.
For with any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation. There comes a certain point in such conditions when only three things are possible: first a perpetuation of Satanic pride, secondly tears, and third laughter.
I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.
Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity.
Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.
All habits are bad habits. (...) Madness does not come by breaking out, but by giving in; by settling down in some dirty, little, self-repeating circle of ideas; by being tamed.
And pray where in earth or heaven are there prudent marriages? Might as well talk about prudent suicides.
Every trace of the passionate plumage of the cloudy sunset had been swept away, and a naked moon stood in a naked sky. The moon was so strong and full, that (by a paradox often to be noticed) it seemed like a weaker sun. It gave, not the sense of bri...
It may well be on such a night of clouds and cruel colors that there is brought forth upon the earth such a portent as a respectable poet. You say you are a poet of law; I say you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and ...
That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.
An artist is identical with an anarchist,' he cried. 'You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one bu...
You say you are a poet of law; I saw you are a contradiction in terms. I only wonder there were not comets and earthquakes on the night you appeared in this garden
This man's spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, but he has kept the commandments.
the poet will be discontented even in the streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt." "There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be sea-sick.
Each thing that obeys law [has] the glory and isolation of the anarchist,
Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left-- sanity.
Then the man smiled, and his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right cheek and down in the left. There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, ...
She had never really listened to anyone in her life; which, some said, was why she had survived.
A puddle repeats infinity, and is full of light; nevertheless, if analyzed objectively, a puddle is a piece of dirty water spread very thin on mud.
