...this is what death does to you, it takes and takes, so that all that is left of your memories is a faint tracing of spilled ash.

The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.

Those who are made can be unmade.

You know I'm not a man with whom you can have inconsequential conversations. I cannot split myself into two, one your friend and the other the king's servant.

He says in his defence he never meddled with married women, only with virgins.

When a man admits guilt we have to believe him. We cannot set ourselves to proving to him that he is wrong. Otherwise the law courts would never function.

The lawyer's world is entire unto itself, the human pared away.

How many men can say, as I must, 'I am a man whose only friend is the King of England'? I have everything, you would think. And yet take Henry away, and I have nothing.

... every monarch needs a blow on the head, from time to time.

If Mary's blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.

Full bellies breed gentle manners. The pinch of famine makes monsters.

The senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour. Hubert Humphrey, as quoted by Biden, p. 134

You really need to stop Googling yourself and start being an artist.

Six days shalt thou paddle and pack, but on the seventh thou shall wash thy socks.

In times of great necessity, violence is indispensable.

The sigh, the groan of a broken heart, will soon go through the ceiling up to heaven, aye, into the very bosom of God.

How can you forgive if you can’t remember to forget?

I do regard spinning and weaving as a necessary part of any national system of education.

If more husbands and fathers would put as much energy into their marriages and families as they do their jobs, the world would change.

I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.

Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours? Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.