Why We Broke Up

We couldn't only have magic nights buzzing through the wires. We had to have the days, too, the bright impatient days spoiling everything with their unavoidable schedules, their mandatory times that don't overlap, their loyal friends who don't get along, the unforgiven travesties torn from the wall no matter what promises are uttered past midnight, and that's why we broke up. 

~Daniel Handler

The Bell Jar

And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat. 

~Sylvia Plath

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--

If one, settling a pillow by her head, 

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all."

~T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Do I dare

Disturb the universe? 

~T.S. Eliot

Cadillac Moon

Big Bang. The Big

Apple, Atom's

Behind him--

no sirens 

in sight. His career

of careening

since--at six--

playing stickball

a car stole

his spleen. 

~Kevin Young

Novel

You are in love. Occupied until the month of August. 

You are in love. --Your sonnets make Her laugh. 

All your friends go off, you are ridiculous. 

~Arthur Rimbaud

Life of Pi

To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. 

~Yann Martel