I advise, however, moderation in this task of setting goals, or else risk becoming tangled up in a Gordian knot of life’s many disappointments.

He wore the memory of her embrace like armor, and though he knew it would not save his life, it would be all that was left to him to ease his passage into whatever lay beyond.

Since my arrival in Rome, I have had many opportunities to wonder if compassion’s opposite is cruelty, or to reflect whether or not indifference would serve as a better black to its white.

We would soon be on our way to war, where mercy is unwise and kindness has no place.

Why can’t I remember that not once have I ever seen a coin, whether grimy copper or bright gold, that had but one side.

Ignorance is an underrated virtue, my lord.

Pride costs nothing, yet it is especially precious when it can be “purchased” at someone else’s expense.

Some men simply refuse to appear insulted. But then, having felt the sting from the slap on their cheek, know just where to slip the knife, their smile never fading.

Oh, the unintended consequences of perfidy!

I know that men are so eager to be one among the stars.I feel that damaged earth will never let men go off hand.

Pigs should not make friends with butchers. One must choose one's friends wisely.

Speed, it seems to me, provides the one genuinely modern pleasure.

I only answer to two people, myself and God.

Yoga is the practice of radical transformation

The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.

Adventure is making the distant approach nearer but romance is having what is where it is which is not where you are stay where it is.

We are valued wither too highly or not high enough; we are never taken at our real worth.

All I did my first year at Vogue was Xerox.

Success and happiness spring from facing failure after failure with enthusiasm.