The sentence that became the title of the book is the first sentence of the tenth and last part of the book, on page 117 of 128 in my paperback copy. Have you ever read By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept? Have you ever read “By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept”? And you may dwell with it in palaces or in flophouses, on clean silk or on reeking cotton, or both by turns, but it is always yours, in paradise and in exile. But you still are still pregnant with this sense.

And make a new meaning.Īnd then life moves on. And when you now meet, you are carried away, captured by the fame – no, you capture it and you carry it away. Sometimes a sentence takes familiar bits and puts them together in a new way that is like someone you’ve never known before but suddenly feel like you have wanted to know all your life. Sometimes the resemblance is strong and deliberate, calling forth all the memories you have of an old friend, or like someone you have not known but have long wanted to meet. Sometimes the resemblance is weak and general, like a face in the crowd that is like other faces you’ve seen in other places. Every sentence you read reminds you of previous sentences and evokes feelings you had about those sentences. Ideas and words and strings of words come together in your mind, they have affairs, and they give birth to sentences through your tongue and your lips and your teeth and your fingertips.Įverything you hear is like something you’ve heard before. Sentences do not pass through you like trains through a station. This one is 4000 words long, but it is divided in ten parts.

By grand central station i sat down