In the first half of the 20th Century, we lived through human disasters on a scale unimaginable. The Holocaust was once suggested would be the end of not only civilization, but art, too.

...falling in love could be achieved in a single word—a glance.

come back, come back to me

Imagining what it is like to be someone other than yourself is at the core of our humanity. It is the essence of compassion, and it is the beginning of morality.

I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.

True intelligence requires fabulous imagination.

When its gone, you'll know what a gift love was. you'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.

I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated ill-shaven giant (but a giant who's a genius on his best days).

I'm holding back, delaying the information. I'm lingering in the prior moment because it was a time when other outcomes were still possible.

Observing human variety can give pleasure, but so too can human sameness.

...if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself—that will be the man who’s not after your soul.

A woman seldom writes her Mind but in her Postscript.

To die, so young to die. No, no, not I, I love the warm sunny skies, light, song, shining eyes, I want no war, no battle cry, No, no, not I.

I have often observ'd the loudest Laughers to be the dullest Fellows in the Company.

We must accept our reality as vastly as we possibly can; everything, even the unprecedented, must be possible within it.

There is no idea so bad that it cannot be made to look brilliant with the proper application of fonts and color.

No one gives up on something until it turns on them, whether or not that thing is real or unreal.

Audacity is the currency for authoritarians.

When youre on top, youre on top.

Substantial progress toward better things can rarely be taken without developing new evils requiring new remedies.