justice itself is a chimera, a delusion. Justice is not a flat yardstick, applied in equal measure to an equal situation.

Day and night she had drudged and struggled and thrown her soul into her work, and there was not much of her left over for anything else. Being human, she suffered from this lack and did what she could to make up for it. If she passed the evening bent over a table in the library and later declared that she had spent that time playing cards, it was as though she had managed to do both those things. Through the lies, she lived vicariously. The lies doubled the little of her existence that was left over from work and augmented the little rag end of her personal life.

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.

Maybe when people longed for a thing that bad the longing made them trust in anything that might give it to them.

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.

justice itself is a chimera, a delusion. Justice is not a flat yardstick, applied in equal measure to an equal situation.

Next to music beer was best.