Lewis Carroll
- --
While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.
Norton Juster
- "The Phantom Tollbooth"
If something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones.
Norton Juster
- "The Phantom Tollbooth"
Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.
William Carlos WIlliams
- Love Song
Sweep the house clean, hang fresh curtains in the windows; put on a new dress and come with me! The elm is scattering its little loaves of sweet smells from a white sky! Who shall hear of us in the time to come? Let him say there was a burst of fragrance from black branches.
Boris Pasternak
- Wild Vines
Beneath a willow entwined with ivy, we look for shelter from the bad weather; one raincoat covers both our shoulders - my fingers rustle like the wild vine around your breasts. I am wrong. The rain's stopped. Not ivy, but the hair of Dionysus hangs from these willows. What am I to do? Throw the raincoat under us!
D. H. Lawrence
- Green
The dawn was apple-green, the sky was green wine held up in the sun, the moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green they shone, clear like flowers undone for the first time, now for the first time seen.
Robert Graves
- She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep
She tells her love while half asleep, in the dark hours, with half-words whispered low: as Earth stirs in her winter sleep and puts out grass and flowers, despite the snow, despite the falling snow.
A. E. Housman
- Oh, When I Was In Love
Oh, when I was in love with you, then I was clean and brave, and miles around the wonder grew how well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by, and nothing will remain, and miles around they'll say that I am quite myself again.
