1
The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.W.b. Yeats
2
It illuminated a vision Dante could not have imagined in his wildest nightmares, nor Poe in the grasp of an uncontrollable delirium.Alan Dean Foster
3
How easily such a thing can become a mania, how the most normal and sensible of women once this passion to be thin is upon them, can lose completely their sense of balance and proportion and spend years dealing with this madness.Kathryn Hurn
4
To say she is only a woman is to say a violin is a piece of wood with strings, and Dante is mere ink printed on paper.Bruce Crown
5
I wonder if I talk like a dead man. My daughter once came home from school very excited about some lecture -this was years ago, before I died, though just right before- and she said her English teacher had talked about what the dead sound like in Dante. This funny thing about Dante's dead, which is that they know the past, and even the future, but they don't know the present. About the present they have all these questions for Dante. And that somehow is what being alive is, to be suspended in the time. She seemed to feel that really meant something. That and also that the dead know themselves better than the living do. .Rivka Galchen
6
We are burning like a chicken wing left on the grill of an outdoor barbecuewe are unwanted and burning we are burning and unwanted we arean unwantedburningas we sizzle and fryto the bonethe coals of Dante's 'Inferno' spit and sputter beneathus andabove the sky is an open hand andthe words of wise men are uselessit's not a nice world, a nice world it's not ...Charles Bukowski
7
After Homer and Dante, is a whole century of creating worth one Shakespeare?Dejan Stojanovic
8
Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth, for sitting softly cushioned, or tucked in bed, is no way to win fame.Dante Alighieri
9
I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we're thinking about things that we don't know we're thinking about-and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we're like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That's what dreams are.Unknown
10
I guess I did miss Dante-even though I tried hard to not think about him. The problem with trying hard not to think about something was that you thought about it even more.Unknown
11
I guess I didn't have it so bad. Maybe everybody didn't love me, but i wasn't one of those kids that everyone hated, either. I was good in a fight. So people left me alone.i was almost invisible.i think i liked it that way. And then Dante came along.Unknown
12
DANTE: And what if you found out you were right? What if it meant that I could hurt you? R E N E E: I would not say that I'm not scared. Everyone has the ability to hurt. It's the choice that matters.Yvonne Wood
13
Dante Alighieri wrote his first book in the prosimetrum genre — La Vita Nuova — in 14th century Florence. Since I’m compiling this collection — my first indie publication — in Florence, just blocks from Dante’s house, and since his book involves a lost love, and ‘A New Life, ’ I thought it fitting to emulate this style in my own casual, intuitive fashion. My hope is that the juxtaposition of poems, journal entries, essays and prose will create a story; a memoir in anarchistic vignettes.Jalina Mhyana
14
Try it again, " I said. "Kiss me."" No, " he said." KisUnknown
15
I wished it was raining, " he said." I don't need the rain, " I said. "I need you.Unknown
16
...you found me in my lonely labyrinth and like Beatrice, led me out of my own hell...John Geddes
17
Bourbon, Kentucky bourbon especially, is like Dante’s Inferno in a glass, fire walks down your throat, lungs, and heart and everything in between with an unpleasant after-taste. We got along just fine.Bruce Crown
18
He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.Unknown
19
I wonder if he’d been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.Unknown
20
There are worst things in life than kissing boys.Unknown