Prudence says one thing, desire says another, and I'd rather go with desire any time.

People hear what they want and expect to hear, not what is said.

Man seems not so much wicked as frail, unable to face pain, trouble and growing old. A good woman knows that nature is her enemy. Look at what it does to her.

Ambition will, and should, always outstrip achievement.

No one seemed able to look at themselves, coolly, from the outside. Their reality was all that could be seen in the light cast ahead by their own wishful thinking.

Because clearly the most amazing thing had happened: by some chance - no, the lover does not believe in chance, but destiny - destiny had arranged it so that the man and woman who had made the original whole, then somehow divided and separated by an angry God, had met up again, and now must reform the rightful, righteous whole. At once!

The prophets of doom, in my experience, are generally ignored and usually right.