I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round read more

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, read more

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. So, melancholy is morbid only when it occupies too much place in life; but it is equally morbid for it to be wholly excluded from life.

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.

Tearless grief bleeds inwardly.

Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness

Melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness

When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to read more

When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.

I quickly laugh at everything for fear of having to cry.