“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.”

“Dealing with the Liberals, it was like trying to grab quicksilver.”

“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”

“Oh Dafne,
you truly had pitiless pity
when you stayed my dart.”

“Things always seem to glide away.
They come to you, stay a moment, then leave again.”

“Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.”

“When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then — he needn't hope to find himself again.”

“Nervous hands as if the fingers were dripping from them like icicles.”

“You are like a hurricane
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer
Where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I'm getting blown away.”

“I loved playing an open hand against all the Jewish political functionaries … For me, 'open hand' is a winged word.”