“What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills ...”

“To make them forget how bad human beings are, they were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are.”

“Nothing gives a fearful man more courage than another's fear.”

“Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.”

“Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported...”

“Thus we have on stage two men, each of whom knows nothing of what he believes the other knows, and to deceive each other reciprocally both speak in allusions, each of the two hoping (in vain) that ...”

“Fear finds its prey in adolescents for the exact same reason fearlessness does. Every cut, scrape, broken arm or cancer is a cut, scrape, broken arm or cancer that has yet to arrive, that is on the...”

“No adolescent ever wants to be understood, which is why they complain about being misunderstood all the time.”

“It pained me to imagine how our twosome appeared to others, marked as those kind of girls who belonged to each other. Those sexless fixtures of high school.”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made,What's a sundial in the shade?”

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ”

“Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.”