“Tell me a story of deep delight.”

The Works of Publius Virgilius Maro (2nd ed. 1654), Virgil's Æneis

Source: The King of Attolia

Biographical memoir: "John von Neumann (1903 - 1957)" in Year book of the American Philosophical Society (1958); later in Symmetries and Reflections : Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner (1967), p. 261
Context: A deep sense of humor and an unusual ability for telling stories and jokes endeared Johnny even to casual acquaintances. He could be blunt when necessary, but was never pompous. A mind of von Neumann's inexorable logic had to understand and accept much that most of us do not want to accept and do not even wish to understand. This fact colored many of von Neumann's moral judgments. "It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature." Only scientific intellectual dishonesty and misappropriation of scientific results could rouse his indignation and ire — but these did — and did almost equally whether he himself, or someone else, was wronged.

sourced, poetry

On not caring about what other people think about her writing in “An Interview with Amulya Malladi” http://jaggerylit.com/an-interview-with-amulya-malladi/ in Jaggery

Source: Written on the Body

Source: The Passion (1987)

Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book II, Line 3 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald); these are the opening words of Aeneas's narrative about the fall of Troy, addressed to Queen Dido of Carthage.

Source: Lighthousekeeping (2004), p. 49