For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.

[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.

Like putting a name to my problems would solve anything

All the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy.

Sometimes in life, things happen that will knock you back. Hell, you may get beaten to your knees but you must never ALLOW this world to knock you down! Conjure up all the strength you have and drive through whatever it is keeping you on your knees. Build up the strength and your knees may never buckle again!

Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.