Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.

In private grief with careless scorn. In public seem to triumph and not to mourn.

In private grief with careless scorn. In public seem to triumph and not to mourn.

It's the things I might have said that fester.

It's the things I might have said that fester.

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.

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

In its function, the power to punish is not essentially different from that of curing or educating.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am read more

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.
I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down read more

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some read more

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

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.