Erich Fromm

Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love. — Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving. (Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Anniversary edition, November 21, 2006)

Mary Oliver

As for life, I’m humbled, I’m without words sufficient to say how it has been hard as flint, and soft as a spring pond, both of these and over and over … — Mary Oliver, from “Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond,” Wild Geese. (Gardners Books, September 30, 2004)

Gabriel García Márquez

No matter what you do this year or in the next hundred, you will be dead forever. — Gabriel García Márquez, Memories of My Melancholy Whores. (Vintage; Reprint edition, November 14, 2006)

Carl Sandburg

WISHES left on your lips The mark of their wings. Regrets fly kites in your eyes. — Carl Sandburg, “Wistful,” Smoke and Steel. (Kessinger Publishing, LLC, December 1, 2004) Originally published January 1st 1960.

George Bernard Shaw

You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not? ― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah. (BiblioBazaar, January 30, 2007) Originally published 1921.