No one is safe from nature's savagery,not even the innocent. Only beauty is consistent. Gabrielle envisions a time when the Savage Garden will overtake civilizations and destroy it.

[...] so important to believe in a concept of goodness, even if we make it up ourselves. We don't really make it up. it's there, isn't it?" "Oh, yes, it's there," she said. "It's there because we put it there.

In these last few days, we were close because we were both mortal men. We saw the same sun and the same twilight, we felt the same pull of the earth beneath our feet. We drank together and broke bread together. We might have made love together, if you had only allowed such a thing. But that’s all changed. You have your youth, yes, and all the dizzying wonder that accompanies the miracle. But I still see death when I look at you. I know now I cannot be your companion, and you cannot be mine

Our language needs endless synonyms for beautiful; the eyes could see what the tongue cannot possibly describe.

I was obsessed with religious questions, the basics: Why are we here? Why is the world so beautiful?

The library furnished our dreams, helped us shape our ambitions, made up people of books and ideas and grand designs.

Being liberated means reading what you want to read, and fantasizing about what you want to fantasize about.