“At first she had wanted to be a Saint because they wore such lovely gowns and gold halos around their hair; afterwards a beggar who would travel wide, drawing people with soft coal. But now it was irrevocably decided that the only thing that counted was what Lola called hymns. In that way she could not only invoke caressingly all the things she loved, the sea, the trees, the sand, the wind, the sun, but she could own them, gather them up to herself, and by reading the hymns over and over again renew each time the feeling she saw at the same time as the object themselves.”
—
“What a queer thing? What was there in singing and hymns that made people cry. Even a full grown soul, as her mother's must be, could cry. And there was no explanation. All her mother would say, when questioned, was that those things were not called hymns.”
—
“He stood in the shadow, listening, and beneath the sound of water and the clangor of jugs and voices he heard other sounds, and beneath them still others perceptible to his divining ears, and all the sounds together rose up towards him, and all the sounds together had a rhythm which beat inside his head against the sides of his resonant mind, one layer upon another, unfolding, falling and rising, and the raising of the arms was a sound very clear to him, and the paradic sunlight was a sound, and the walking of the soft-fleshed women was a sound, heavy and persistent, and the falling of the water was not only the sound of falling water but the washing of the sea and of tears, and the sibilance of voices repeating all the words which had been spoken in the world, and all the feelings which made an unbearable resonance in his mind, all the cries, all washing against the resonance of his mind, divining one sound within another, eternally, as he divined one soul within another, one soul within another, and one dream within another.”
—
“Then moods, black moods, all wisdom and all courage scattered. She had said she did not mind, let them enjoy the present. She did not mean what she said. For a moment they were so curiously, so strangely tuned to the same feelings, both finding out truths with the same plodding sincerity, the same self-forgetfulness.
So rare, that sameness of mind, always the right answer, the immediate response, the continuation of one's own dreams, mixtures of dreams which led on to fecund phantasies.”
—
“She knew he would never touch her, and that even if he touched her he could never hold her. So she savoured the hot sound of his voice dropping so low, as if to penetrate her: ‘I want to love you.’ She savoured the way they sat, shoulders touching, she quite aware of the contact, quite aware of the caress of his eyes on the outline of her body, aware of the slight, unreal tremor in himself, a tremor of the mind, a passion of the mind — a mere craving.
She lived that moment a whole long life with him. There would be tenderness and sharpness, a feeling of satanic and elusive beauty, unreachable, untouchable, unreal feelings, always falling short, something always falling short, thin, evanescent, teasing, incomplete - just that feeble call to living: I want to love, in a low, tormented voice.”
—
“It was strainge to hear him speak of his own deadness with lyrical intensity — strange how he could make poetry out of it. Sitting beside him, she felt again that deadness enfolding her, and herself becoming a St. Anne, not in the foreground like the Mother who lives in the child, but in the background, having finished with life, now dispensing understanding, herself entire, wise, aware of everything, savouring the poetry of his resplendent death and the possibility of his resurrection.”
—
“The pleasure was unimportant. What was important was the convergence of all feelings in him, making him ultimately self sufficient, and the self-sufficiency in her because of the preponderance of the artist, so that wisdom awoke in both in spite of the non-human experience. She saw the symbolical plenitude in him, craving companionship only at moments, and he saw the symbolical plenitude in her, wavering only at moments. The awakened wisdom gained in sharpness because they had both carved out all personal softness and pain away from themselves, to gain an understanding of something nobody had cared to understand because of the fear of solitude.”
—
“I give back to God what He sent me, I am grateful, thankful, grateful for the gift. I give you back what was given me. Hear my prayer. I wanted red roses. Perhaps it was wrong. But if I offer them to you, it is not wrong. Take them, I am a woman. The woman was given red roses. They burn me. Now they burn for you. But I still have the joy, this joy of being woman. I am woman, such a joy I cannot hold. Hear my prayer. I cannot pray.
It is the joy. Take the joy. Is it wrong? Here is my joy and my red roses, but I cannot be as I was yesterday, before they came. I will never be as I was yesterday. Was it wrong? Take the roses, and my gratitude, and the joy, it is too much for me, all in one day. I cannot bear it when my desires are fulfilled.”
—
"Forgive me for talking about her, but here with you is the only peace and coolness I know. The other is like a fever, which wears me out, like bad fever, a horrible thirst. I need her so much, want her so much. I go to her. We spend the day together in her room, but when I go away I do not feel satisfied, and yet I have been fearfully happy. […] It's queer, here I feel freer. It is the light atmosphere of your intelligence, of your calm will. The other woman dominates me and all my senses. I can't think. I can't work. I can only enjoy her; I am only aware of her. In a way that powerful forgetfulness is sweet, terribly sweet. I can't give it up, I can't give it up."