When I was young, I expected from people more than they could give: neverending friendship and constant excitement. Now I expect less than they can actually can give: to stay close silently. And their feelings, friendship, noble deeds always seem like a miracle to me: a true grace.

... We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.

When I was young, I expected from people more than they could give: neverending friendship and constant excitement. Now I expect less than they can actually can give: to stay close silently. And their feelings, friendship, noble deeds always seem like a miracle to me: a true grace.

The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action.

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.

What is a rebel? A man who says no: but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation.