Date: 1912

"He sat very stiff for a while in deep but meaningless thought. His mind felt like a feather -- a puff of smoke -- drifting dust. An impish wind was blowing it, and would not allow it to settle."

— William Goodridge Roberts (1877-1953)

Date: 1949-1952, 1953

"Hard, hard work, excavating and digging, mining, moling through tunnels, heaving, pushing, moving rock, working, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It's internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable t...

— Bellow, Saul (1915-2005)

Date: December, 1954

"My mind, a vagrant, dreams on the shining Alps."

— Scott, Peter Dale (b. January 11, 1929)

Date: December, 1954

"Does Somebody look bored, / His thoughts vacant as plaster, with being year / After bleeding year, our immobile word?"

— Scott, Peter Dale (b. January 11, 1929)

Date: 1984

"Amid those visits and conversations a book to be called 'The Pound Era' first began to shimmer hazily in my mind."

— Kenner, Hugh (1923-2003)

Date: 1989

"Like trees similar in their gross physical profile, brains can be similar in their gross functional profiles while being highly idiosyncratic in the myriad details of their fine-grained arborization."

— Churchland, Paul (b. 1942)

Date: 2007

"And at the same time, a censor somewhere in my brain was simplifying things for me, helping me to cope with the necessary."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: 2007

"It would keep, and my brain filed it away for later."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: 2007

"I have a brain full of remembered names but the road is often blocked with rubble."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: 2007

"[M]y brain ... did most of what I wanted it to do, but it had sand traps that I learned to avoid."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)