“If you wish,
I shall grow irreproachably tender:
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!”

“I grow old … I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

“Greet your son Aristocleides from me. I pray he may not turn out like you, since you, too, were once an irreproachable young man.”

“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.”

“I love you, man. You rule! Thanks for the food. It touches me deep in my tender place. (Sway)
I don’t want to know nothing about your tender place, you freak. (Devyn)”

“Soon, if any envy still spreads clouds before you, it shall perish, and after me you shall be paid the honours you deserve.”
Mox, tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubila livor, occidet, et meriti post me referentur honores.

“From now on whatever the hour represented on the canvas, a supreme accord will be wrought amongst all the parts of the subject: the water, the sky, the clouds, the foliage, reunified by the atmosphere, will form a whole of an irreproachable homogeneity, a grandiose and charming image of natural harmony.”

“This autumn-
why am I growing old?
bird disappearing among clouds.”

“Your trousers are on fire. I would have told you, but you so dislike advice…”

“One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.”