He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it.

That is what always happens: we never know whether we are victors or whether we are defeated.

It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

The web of time - the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect, or ignore each other through the centuries - embraces "every" possibility. We do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do, and you do not, and in yet others both of us exist.

I write for myself, and perhaps for half a dozen friends. And that should be enough. And that might improve the quality of my writing. But if I were writing for thousands of people, then I would write what might please them. And as I know nothing about them, and maybe I'd have a rather low opinion of them, I don't think that would do any good to my work.

The word happiness exists in every language; it is plausible the thing itself exists.

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes.