But to look back from the stony plain along the road which led one to that place is not at all the same thing as walking on the road; the perspective to say the very least, changes only with the journey; only when the road has, all abruptly and treacherously, and with an absoluteness that permits no argument, turned or dropped or risen is one able to see all that one could not have seen from any other place.

Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.

People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen forget.

The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters?

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.