You go into a book and you're in the dark, really. You go in with a certain fear and trembling. You know one thing. You know you will not be the same person when this voyage is over. But you don't know what's going to happen to you between getting on the boat and stepping off.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

I'm beginning to think that maybe everything that happens makes sense. Like, if it didn't make sense, how could it happen?

To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity.

The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.

Passion is not friendly. It is arrogant, superbly contemptuous of all that is not itself, and, as they very definition of passion implies the impulse to freedom, it has a might intimidiating power. It contains a challenge. It contains an unspeakable hope.

If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live.