“I love dipping into dreams and sinuously sinking into sleep. It s the freest place to be. The possibilities are limitless and my imagination becomes a weightless wonder.”
“Whatever we may say, all of us suffer from disturbed sleep at times. Some in truth hardly sleep, though some who sleep copiously swear that they do not. Some are disquieted by incessant dreams, and a fortunate few are visited often by dreams of delightful character. Some will say that they were at one time troubled in sleeping but have recovered from it, as though awareness were a disease, as perhaps it is.”
“I wanted to find a nice quiet spot, go to sleep, and dream about kittens.”
“But lying in bed just before going to sleep is the worst time for organized thinking; it is the best time for free thinking. Ideas drift like clouds in an undecided breeze, taking first this direction and then that.”
“What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts...”
“Bright morning comes; the bloody-fingered dawn with zealous light sets seas of air ablaze and bends to earth another false beginning. My eyes open like cornflowers, stick, crusted with their own stale dew, then take that light.”
“My only relief is to sleep. When I m sleeping, I m not sad, I m not angry, I m not lonely, I m nothing.”
“Don t fall asleep yet. Contrary to popular belief, that s not where dreams get accomplished.”
“Death s brother, sleep.”
“With great power comes a great need to take a nap.”
“What pillow can one have like a good conscience?”
“Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day.”
“Sleep, that deplorable curtailment of the joy of life.”
“You look tired, Rachel told Jason. I wish I could jog and sleep at the same time. Can t you? Ferrin asked, joining them at the little cascade. I always imagined that you could sleep rolling down a mountainside in a barrel. I probably could today, Jason conceded.”
“Speech, tennis, music, skiing, manners, love- you try them waking and perhaps balk at the jump, and then you re over. You ve caught the rhythm of them once and for all, in your sleep at night. The city, of course, can wreck it. So much insomnia. So many rhythms collide. The salesgirl, the landlord, the guests, the bystanders, sixteen varieties of social circumstance in a day. Everyone has the power to call your whole life into question here. Too many people have access to your state of mind. Some people are indifferent to dislike, even relish it. Hardly anyone I know.”
“Our nights are different. She falls asleep like someone yielding to the gentle tug of a warm tide, and floats with confidence till morning. I fall asleep more grudgingly, thrashing at the waves, either reluctant to let a good day depart or still bitching about a bad one. Different currents run through our spells of unconsciousness.”
“He doesn t mind if he dies... indeed, he would like to die; but yet he fears to fall. He would welcome a long sleep; but not at the price of falling to it.”