James Wall

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.”
― Oscar Wilde, Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde including the Ballad of Reading Gaol

“I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be.”
― John Cheever

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita