Alex Duke

“if Greece were a woman so sensually provocative that I must fall physically and desperately in love with her, and at the same time so calmly aristocratic that I should never be able to approach her.”
― John Fowles, The Magus

“The women at Dachau knew they were about to be gassed when they pushed back the Nazi guard who wanted to die with them, saying he must live. And sang for a little while after the doors closed.”
― Jack Gilbert, Collected Poems

“She had something that is gone from the world, from the female world. A sweetness without sentimentality, a limpidity without naivety. She was so easy to hurt, to tease. And when she teased, it was like a caress.”
― John Fowles, The Magus

“Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response.”
― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace