“Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.”

“From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.”

“Listen to the rain
Here it comes again
Hear it in the rain
Feel the touch
of tears that fall
— they won't fall forever
In the way the day will flow
all things come,
all things go.”

“It's all of the good that won't come out of us and how eventually our hands will just turn to dust, if we keep shaking them standing here on this frozen lake.”

“Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.”

“Isn't it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?”

“Louisiana rain now is falling just like tears.
Running down my face washing out the years.
Louisiana rain is soaking through my shoes.
I may never be the same when I reach Baton Rouge.”

“I do a dance to make the rain come,
Smile to keep the sky from falling down, down, down, down.
Collect the love that I've been given
Build a nest for us to sleep in here
You know it's real.”

“In a rainstorm, everyone quickly runs down the street with umbrellas, raincoats, newspapers over their heads. Writers go back outside in the rain with a notebook in front of them and a pen in hand. They look at the puddles, watch them fill, watch the rain splash in them.”

“But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”