Favourite quotes and poems

• Casey's Last Ride

  Casey joins the hollow sound of silent people walking down The stairway to the subway in the shadows down below Following their footsteps through the neon-darkened corridors Of silent desperation, never speakin’ to a soul

  The poison air he’s breathin’ has the dirty smell of dyin' ‘Cause it’s never seen the sunshine and it’s never felt the rain But Casey minds the arrows and ignores the fatal echoes Of the clickin’ of the turnstiles and the rattle of his chains

  Oh, she said, Casey it’s been so long since I’ve seen you Here, she said, just a kiss to make a body smile See, she said, I’ve put on new stockings just to please you Lord, she said, Casey can you only stay a while?

  Casey leaves the underground and stops inside the Golden Crown For something wet to wipe away the chill that’s on his bone Seeing his reflection in the lives of all the lonely men Who reach for anything they can to keep from goin’ home

  Standin’ in the corner, Casey drinks his pint of bitter Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by Then he stumbles as he’s leaving and he wonders if the reason Is the beer that’s in his belly or the tear that’s in his eye

  Oh, she said, I suppose you seldom think about me Now, she said, Now that you’ve a family of your own Still, she said, it’s so blessed good to feel your body Lord, she said, Casey, it’s a shame to be alone

• One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing the living from the dead, lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there? — There beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death.

• He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure whether what he said was very witty or very stupid.

• Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. I don’t much care where — Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.

• Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

• Men seek retreats for themselves… no retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than that into his own mind.

• I travel on by nature’s path until I fall and find rest, breathing my last into that air from which I draw my daily breath, and falling on that earth which gave my father his seed, my mother her blood, my nurse her milk; the earth which for so many years has fed and watered me day by day; the earth which bears my tread and all the ways in which I abuse her.