For courage, there must be something at stake. I come here with nothing to lose.

Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.

The problem with a philosophy or a belief is that you soon start changing the facts to fit it.

The reality of life is that we are all living someone else's dream. Now that's everyone's fantasy.

And please punish Jenny. You could strike her dead. Amen.” Jenny blinked. “I’m no expert on this, but… are you supposed to pray for someone to be struck dead?

Whoever ego motivates becomes an idol worshipper

Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic.

Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.

To find oneself living in an age of doubt is not such a curse. There is a kind of reverence in undertaking the quest for truth, even before the first scrap has been found.

I would never write in response to what I believe the public wanted or needed.

The fools of the world have been those who have established religions, ceremonies, laws, faith, rule of life.

You can't kill me, I've got a magic... AAAARGH !