“My first poem was a bolt from the blue … it broke a spell of disillusion and suicidal despondence. … it filled me with soul satisfying joy.”

“Blue hyacinths!
Oh, do not show them me; they fill my eyes
With tears too soft for such a scene as this.”

“I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:"”

“Joy to the world
All the boys and girls, now,
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me”

“Conversations bore me, to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to my soul.”

“Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem.”

“None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it.”

“It is a disaster that wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with yourself and always sends you away dissatisfied and fearful, whereas stubbornness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance.”

“The business of polishing my shoes satisfies my soul.”

“A soft and blue Italian sky, — the blue
That painters and that poets love, — the blue
The lover worships in the maiden's eyes,
Whose beauty is their power and spell.”