... the kiss, the bodily surrender which would seem natural and but moderately attractive...

... Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth...

When one feels oneself smitten by love for a woman, one ought to say to oneself, “What are her surroundings? What has been her life? All one’s future happiness lies in the answer.

... there was no need for him to hasten towards the attainment of a happiness already captured and held in a safe place, which would not escape his grasp again.

... the idea that 'Life' contains situations more interesting and more romantic than all the romances ever written.

Why did you not forget your heart also? I should never have let you have that back." ...

... the courage of one's opinions is always a form of calculating cowardice in the eyes of the 'other side'...

... rejoicing in a peace which brings only an increase of anxiety, ...

She [Mme des Laumes] belonged to that half of the human race in whom the curiosity the other half feels about the people it does not know is replaced by an interest in the people it does.

One felt that in her renunciation of life she had deliberately abandoned those places in which she might at least have been able to see the man she loved, for others where he had never trod.

Presently, one after another, like shyly hopping sparrows, her friends arrived, black against the snow.

The failure to read the Holy Bible leads to spiritual depletion.

If there are any tears shed in heaven, they will be over the fact that we prayed so little.

You’re my change of skin / my summer-winter-fall / I spring to follow you / this loss is beautiful.

Courage means to keep working a relationship, to continue seeking solutions to difficult problems, and to stay focused during stressful periods.

Ben Franklin may have discovered electricity- but it is the man who invented the meter who made the money.

Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine.

I have a deep rooted folk sensibility that I can't get away from completely.

There's nothing weak about being subject to something.

Ends and purposes, whether they exist as conscious or subconscious tendencies, form the wrap and woof of our conscious experience.

There's that thing about the '80s, the '40s and the '60s, and the '30s, the '50s and the '70s. Something about those odd decades in this century that weren't too pleasant.