In many ways, a degree in the history of ideas is the ideal training for an aspiring writer.

Think about it. He drinks poison. What kind of man drinks poison? She is the one who stabs herself with his dagger. The manly way.

as a bird swoops down on it's prey, and assumes this land bound wretch into heaven, so did romeo steal her lips before they fled him again. suspended somewhere between cherubs and devils, his quarry ceased to buck, and he spread his wings wide and let the rising wind carry them off across the sky, until even the predator himself had lost every hope of returning home. within that one embrace, [he] became aware of a feeling of certainty he had not thought possible for anyone - even the virtuous. with her in his arms, all other women, past, present, and future, simply ceased to exist.

Was I insane? Maybe. But then, there were many different kinds of insanity. Aunt Rose had always taken for granted that the whole world was in a state of constantly fluctuating madness, and that a neurosis was not an illness, but a fact of life, like pimples. Some have more, some have less, but only truly abnormal people have none at all. This commonsense philosophy had consoled me many times before, and it did now, too.

Everything we say is a story. But nothing we say is just a story.

Don't underestimate the power of events that happened a long time ago. That is the tragic flaw of modern man.

...had always taken for granted that the whole world was in a state of constantly fluctuating madness, and that a neurosis was not an illness, but a fact of life, like pimples.