"Men find pleasure in grapes by treading them down, and when the must is drunk the skins are thrown on the dung-hill.
Grape-skins, that is what I am--but you need not look at me so pitifully; I was grapes once, and poor and despised as I am now, no one can take from me what I have had and have been.

Mine has been a life out of a thousand, a complete life, full to overflowing of joy and suffering, of love and hate, of delight, despair, and revenge.

Only to talk of it raises me to a seat by thy throne there.

No, let me be, I am used now to squatting on the ground; but I knew thou wouldst hear me to the end, for once I too was one of you.

Extremes meet in all things--I know it by experience.