If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake — Aye, what then? – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sharp nostalgia, infinite and terrible, for what I already possess. – Juan Ramon Jimenez

Two and two the mathematician continues to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five. – James McNeill Whistler, Whistler Versus Ruskin, 1878

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered. – Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead