Manuela

“As in plain terms (yet cunningly) he crav'd it; / Love always makes those eloquent that have it (II.71-2).”
― Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander

“As he stumbled along a high bright object caught his eyes; he looked up. Atop a building across the street, above the heads of the people, loomed a flaming cross. At once he knew that it had something to do with him. But why should they burn a cross? As he gazed at it he remembered the sweating face of the black preacher in his cell that morning talking intensely and solemnly of Jesus, of there being a cross for him, a cross for everyone, and of how the lowly Jesus had carried the cross, paving the way, showing how to die, how to love and live eternal. But he had never seen a cross burning like that one upon the roof. Were white people wanting him to love Jesus, too?”
― Richard Wright, Native Son

“Did you ever feel happy in church?" "Naw. I didn’t want to. Nobody but poor folks get happy in church." "But you are poor, Bigger."
Again Bigger’s eyes lit with a bitter and feverish pride. "I ain’t that poor.”
― Richard Wright, Native Son

“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream