“A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences; and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one loved.”

“You must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honorable to y...”

“Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.”

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me ...”

“Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual lifethe life which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within itcan understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity int...”

“I never had any preference for her, any more than I have a preference for breathing.”

“I see your picture and in that picture I didn't see you.”

“A picture can tell a thousand words,but a few words can change its story.”

“Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.”

“London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has n...”

“Humiliating events have a way of capturing the public's imagination. So it has been since antiquity, when gladiators were pitted against each other and the legions of Spartacus were crucified in en...”

“When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.”

“That's how it is with want. As long as you lack something you yearn for it without cease. if only I could have that one thing, you tell yourself, all my problems would be solved. But once you get i...”

“Alice suspected Paul couldnt really picture his father, just like she couldnt picture Paul when he was away. Maybe that was the case with people you wanted more than was good for you.”

“I want, I dont want.How can one live with such a heart?”