Purgatory surpasses heaven and hell in poetry, because it represents a future and the others do not. - François-Auguste-René de Chateaubriand

There and then I promptly resolved to end, in rural exile, a career scarcely begun, in which I had already consumed centuries.

Life is spent hovering round our tomb. Our various sicknesses are but the winds which carry us more or less near to the haven. … Death is our friend, nevertheless we do not recognise it as such, because it presents itself to us under a mask, and that mask inspires us with terror.

A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives — all bear secret relations to our destinies.