“I was too tired to think. I merely felt the town as a unique unreality. What was it? I knew -- the moon's picture of a town. These streets with their houses did not exist, they were but a ludicrous projection of the moon's sumptuous personality. This was a city of Pretend, created by the hypnotism of moonnight. -- Yet when I examined the moon she too seemed but a painting of a moon and the sky in which she lived a fragile echo of color. If I blew hard the whole shy mechanism would collapse gently with a neat soundless crash. I must not, or lose all.”
More from E. E Cummings
“Without the mercy of your eyes, your voice, your ways; how dark am I? No song, nothing.”
“Make me a child.”
“Honor the past, but welcome the future.”
“The utter silence of the untranslated stars.”