To say she is only a woman is to say a violin is a piece of wood with strings, and Dante is mere ink printed on paper.

Bourbon, Kentucky bourbon especially, is like Dante’s Inferno in a glass, fire walks down your throat, lungs, and heart and everything in between with an unpleasant after-taste. We got along just fine.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and...

He tried not to laugh, but he wasn’t good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.

There is no greater sorrowThan to recall a happy timeWhen miserable.

DANTE: And what if you found out you were right? What if it meant that I could hurt you?RENEE: I would not say that I’m not scared. Everyone has the ability to hurt. It’s the...

we are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecuewe are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we arean unwantedburningas we sizzle and fryto the bonethe coals of...

After Homer and Dante, is a whole century of creating worth one Shakespeare?

Griff held his breath, waiting for it, knowing the axe would fall and he‘d start dying as soon as he walked out the fucking door, and Dante would just grin and joke and try to...

You can quiz me on Petrarch, Medea, Shakespeare or Dante, I know them all, and I’m sorry, but they’ve all gone wrong. Dumb glorified men, writing words about love and life as if they knew....

The worst feature of the Common Core is its anti-humanistic, utilitarian approach to education. It mistakes what a child is and what a human being is for. That is why it has no use for...

Thy soul is by vile fear assailed

Not like Homer would I write,Not like Dante if I might,Not like Shakespeare at his best,Not like Goethe or the rest,Like myself, however small,Like myself, or not at all.

i have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we’re thinking about things that we don’t know we’re thinking about-and those things,well,they sneak out of us in our dreams.Maybe we’re like tires...

Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.

…[T]he three greatest works are those of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare.These are closely followed by the works of Virgil and Milton.

I guess I did miss Dante-even though i tried hard to not think about him.The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.

My son, you’ve seen the temporary fireand the eternal fire; you have reachedthe place past which my powers cannot see.I’ve brought you here through intellect and art;from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;you’re...

Not without deep pain do we admit to ourselves that the artists of all ages have in their highest flights carried to heavenly transfiguration precisely those conceptions that we now recognize as false: they are...

I guess I didn’t have it so bad.Maybe everybody didn’t love me,but i wasn’t one of those kids that everyone hated,either.I was good in a fight.So people left me alone.i was almost invisible.i think i...

I felt for the tormented whirlwindsDamned for their carnal sinsCommitted when they let their passions rule their reason.

When art is made new, we are made new with it. We have a sense of solidarity with our own time, and of psychic energies shared and redoubled, which is just about the most satisfying...

Try it again,” I said. “Kiss me.””No,” he said.”Kiss me.””No,” And then he smiled. “You kiss me.”I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I...

…you found me in my lonely labyrinth and like Beatrice, led me out of my own hell…

I wished it was raining,” he said.”I don’t need the rain,” I said. “I need you.

Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!

I don’t mumble anymore, collector.I’m not a collector anymore, pipsqueak.

I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.

Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth, for sitting softly cushioned, or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame.

I’m surprised he doesn’t reach for a wet nap to rid his hands of my general poorness.

There are worst things in life than kissing boys