“Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understand each word the caterpillar said,Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly in my bed.”

“Sometimes the Universe smiled. Mostly she kicked me in the face, stomped on my ribs once I fell down, and laughed at my pain, but once in a while she smiled.”

“And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink.”

“Once a lonely caterpillar sat and cried”

“I am dead to them, even though I once flowered.”

“I knew a girl, once, immortal like me-"

"And she was with someone mortal?" said Alec. "What happened?"

"He died," Magnus said. There was a finality to the way he said it that spoke of a deeper grief than words could paint.”

“Shimrod said: “Once I thought of you as a child in a woman’s body.”
Melancthe smiled a cool smile. “And now?”
“The child seems to have wandered away.””

“The thing about secrets is they keep you in a prison. Once you share, WHOOSH, there is a release.”

“Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.”

“Some of my father's fellow West Pointers once asked him why I turned out so well, his secret in raising me. And he said, "I never gave him any advice, and he never asked for any." We agreed on nothing, but we never quarreled once.”