“A meadow is nothing but a field of suffering. Every second some creature is dying in the gorgeous green expanse, ants eat wriggling earthworms, birds lurk in the sky to pounce on a weasel or a mous...”

“Of course, these were only dreams. How could a sensible woman leave a happy marriage? All the same, a seductive voice from afar kept breaking into her conjugal peace: it was the voice of solitude.”

“Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.This is the obscenity of war: the intimacy of mutually shed blood, the lascivious proximity of two soldiers who, eye to eye, bayonet each ot...”

“If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and...”

“She blushed. It is a beautiful thing when a woman blushes; at that instant her body no longer belongs to her; she doesn't control it; she is at its mercy; oh, can there be anything more beautiful t...”

“Living, there is no happiness in that. Living: carrying ones painful self through the world.But being, being is happiness. Being: Becoming a fountain, a fountain on which the universe falls like wa...”

“Happy girls are the prettiest”

“A girl can still admire, cant she? Even those who cant afford to go in the store can still window-shop. Right? Knowing he wasnt for me didnt mean I couldnt covet the merchandise.”

“The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.”

“Creativity is the state of consciousness in which you enter into the treasury of your innermost being and bring the beauty into manifestation. (p.232)”

“Do you think I'm pretty?I think you're beautifulBeautiful?You are so beautiful, it hurts sometimes.”

“As if you were on fire from within.The moon lives in the lining of your skin.”

“Being busy is a distraction and I am sure that doing nothing, resting and sleeping are all good cures for modern life. I am not suggesting we all do nothing but sleep, however, sometimes stopping l...”

“the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.”

“It struck him that the true characteristic thing about modern life was not its cruelty and insecurity, but simply its bareness, its dinginess, its listlessness.”