“And he whose soul is flat -- the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”

“And when he came to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.”

“Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.”

“A ship is alive, and he is like a man, with a true man’s heart. Treat him well and care for him properly, and he will fight for you against the worst sea. He will fight to keep you alive even after the sea has long since given him his own deathstroke. Neglect him, though, ignore the small warnings he gives of danger, and he will drown you in a flat sea beneath a cloudless sky.”

“I'm flat on the floor, with my head down low, where the sky can't rain on me anymore.”

“My soul is in the sky.”

“She refused to think of Neil, brave and quiet, whose reward for a heroic rescue was to be slowly devoured by strange cave balloons.”

“I couldn't stop staring at the cave, back where Dimitri was, back where half of my soul was.”

“No poet is ever completely lost. He has the secret of his childhood safe with him, like some secret cave in which he can kneel. And, when we read his poetry, we can join him there.”

“And now - Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: '… the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes.”