Books that change you, even later in life, give you a kind of electrical shock as the world takes a different shape.

Harm can come about without will or action. But will and action can avert harm.

Outside our small safe place flies mystery.

Think of this - that the writer wrote alone, and the reader read alone, and they were alone with each other.

A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows "This is I." An ugly woman knows with equal certainty, "This is not I." Maud knew this neat division represented an over-simplification. The doll-mask she saw had nothing to do with her, nothing.

Our days weave together the simple pleasures of daily life, which we should never take for granted, and the higher pleasures of Art and Thought which we may now taste as we please, with none to forbid or criticise.

I think the names of colors are at the edge, between where language fails and where it's at its most powerful.