It's funny, how one can look back on a sorrow one thought one might well die of at the time, and know that one had not yet reckoned the tenth part of true grief.

If you will not die for us, you cannot ask us to die for you.

Only insofar as you enjoy being sorry, my dear, which, while it is a considerable amount, occurs only after the fact, thus making it a singularly ineffective deterrent, yes?

Why is there ever this perverse cruelty in humankind, that makes us hurt most those we love best?

This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause. Dying, we are all alike.

There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.

Some chains are forged for us - those are the hardest to bear.