things never seem as bad as they are.

It is less difficult to look beyond ... and foretell the future, than to look back and remember what has already gone before.

It is possible to wish so greatly for the unattained that in time you believe it has been won - indeed, you can even remember the winning of it.

... the world was beautiful, but nobody looked at it except tourists. ... a kind of perfection of existence was always close at hand, and no one reached for it.

our deeds have even less substance than we ourselves.

Bad enough to make mistakes, without going ahead and marrying them.

it's been my experience that while impossible things happen frequently, improbable ones never do.