«Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades.»

«If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maidservant, when they contended with me; / What then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? / Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb? / If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail; / Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof; / (For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;) / If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering; / If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; / If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate: / Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.»