The tragedy of Dionysus: Wear a black robe at night, and white you’ll wear by morning; but wear a purple robe to the midnight feast, and when you wake you’ll dress in black to mourn...

Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.

Rich will be my life if I can keep my memories full and brimming, and record them on clear-eyed mornings while I set joyously to work setting pen to holy craft.

Fortune’s fool! How we humans lie upon beauty like lizards upon a sun-baked rock.

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I’ve only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a “serious” novel.

No man sings as beautifully as when his song is accompanied by a woman’s voice.

Visions from the gods are gifts alone for those who wander.

When I touched her body,I believed she was God.In the curves of her formI found the birth of Man,the creation of the world,and the origin of all life.

We made love outdoors—without a roof, I like most, without stove, my favorite place, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and dripping with dew, and...

She was a free bird: queen of the world and laughing.

I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side.

A tired man lay down his headin a dusty room so dim,and for so long his wife did shakeand yell to waken him.Meanwhile his thoughts, his dreams, did stirof sandy, red bullfights,of powder-blasts in the...

Wherever you go in the next catastrophéBe it sickroom, or prison, or cemet’ryDo not fear that your stay will besolit’ryCountless souls share your fate,you’ll have company!

Her body accepted my brutal seed and took it to swell within, just as the patient earth accepts a falling fruit into its tender soil to cradle and nourish it to grow. Came a time,...

Those things: Mystery, Fate, and Enchantment… they are things that young people offer us as soon as we get close to them. And if we’re not careful, we can be seduced by, and drawn back...

Not to waste the springI threw down everything,And ran into the open worldTo sing what I could sing…To dance what I could dance!And join with everyone!I wandered with a reckless heartbeneath the newborn sun.First stepping...

In life, more than in anything else, it isn’t easy to end up alive.

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I...

A glorious death would be in myfinal breath to take before I die, to hearone final time on my belovèd’s mouththe sound of her eternal sigh.

Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, I’ve no regrets.

The youthful body untouched decays the fastest, for no living hands record its splendor; and here youth and time are wasted.

I was angry at myself for my inclination to vice. I longed for the day when a state of frenzy would lead my mind to sober pasture, just as it had for Saint Augustine. I...

Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts… for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and...

The ‘Muse’ is not an artistic mystery, but a mathematical equation. The gift are those ideas you think of as you drift to sleep. The giver is that one you think of when you first...

SAUL: ‘We made love outdoors, my favorite place to make love, assuming the weather be fair and balmy, and the earth beneath be clean. Our souls intertwined and dripping with sweat.

In my errant life I roamedTo learn the secrets of women and men,Of gods and dreams.I’ve known all the countries of our world,I’ve lived a thousand lives:Many lives I lived in love, Other lives I...

She is my morning, she is my evening; we have a love that blooms over and again, more beautifully each time than the last. You will see that we are not lovers like others, for...

…You see I believe in that stuff to: yoga and mystical powers. I once knew a man who could kill himself on command. Can you believe that? . . . Why do you laugh? ....

All forms of madness, bizarre habits, awkwardness in society, general clumsiness, are justified in the person who creates good art.

This was how it was with travel: one city gives you gifts, another robs you. One gives you the heart’s affections, the other destroys your soul. Cities and countries are as alive and feeling, as...

Never had we ever kissed as lovers; if we touched lips it was as brother and sister. In one moment of emotion, our lips fell together by accident, but we quickly removed ourselves as though...

The hour of spring was dark at last,sensuous memories of sunlight past,I stood alone in garden bowersand asked the value of my hours.Time was spent or time was tossed,Life was loved and life was lost.I...

I was an adventurer, but she was not an adventuress. She was a ‘wanderess.’ Thus, she didn’t care about money, only experiences – whether they came from wealth or from poverty, it was all the...

So the nymphs they spoke,we kissed and laid.By noontime’s hourour love was made.Like braided chains of crocus stems,we lay entwined, I laid with them.Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea,our bodies draping wearily,we slept, I slept...

A girl without braids is like a mountain without waterfalls.

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall,...

I just wish moments weren’t so fleeting!’ Isaac called to the man on the roof, ‘They pass so quickly!’ ‘Fleeting?!’ responded the tilling man, ‘Moments? They pass quickly?! . . . Why, once a man...

I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.)… ‘I spoke to three scholars,’ [the character says...

Wandering is the activity of the child, the passion of the genius; it is the discovery of the self, the discovery of the outside world, and the learning of how the self is both “at...

The green-eyed angel came in less than a half hour and fell docile as a lamb into my arms. We kissed and caressed, I met no resistance when I unlaced the strings to free her...

I was forced to wander, having no one, forced by my nature to keep wandering because wandering was the only thing that I believed in, and the only thing that believed in me.

Coffee, my delight of the morning; yoga, my delight of the noon. Then before nightfall, I run along the pleasant paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg. For when air cycles through the lungs, and the...

With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and...

I’ve decided the act that cannot wait / is the important will to create / But, ah, if my belly is ignored / the pantry door I shall implore / But I’ve been known to...

Intoxication, like sexual euphoria, is the privilege of the human animal.

I knelt and locked the door. I locked the door locking the world and time outside. I stretched my body across the mattress and Saskia drew in close to me and placed her open hand...

He had been searching for it his entire life. He had devoted himself to poetry to find it. Now, in the middle of his life, he found it. It was in the face of the...

When she was a child, my love carried a road-map in her hand the way other girls carried handkerchiefs. She always knew the way. Her feet were little wings. And her beautiful head was a...

I like the posture, but not the yoga. I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be...

As for men, they must learn bravery and live for Pleasure and for Beauty. More important than those two things should stand only one thing for him… Honor. A man’s honor should be more sacred...