the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation

... 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.

If we act like prey, they’ll act like predators

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Spiritual formation in Christ moves us toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his.

It is not a good idea to continually repeat a mantra during meditation. Repeating a mantra throughout your mediation causes you to fixate on a specific level of consciousness.

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

I want to get to the end and feel that I've done all I could, given the limitations and given the opportunities.

Those flowers were picked by illegal immigrants. And they're not voting for you, b*tch.

I have spent my whole life educating myself.

Be as creative in your tactics as you are in your writing. Find what gets your engine going, no matter how peculiar it may seem to others.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.