The most wicked criminals have God on their lips at all times, for God is the only one who can stomach them.

Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost.

Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine - that is, activity - which could solve it, is seen as odious.

In my experience, there are two things that no one will admit to: having no sense of humor and being susceptible to flattery.

Oh, he was just angry, we tell ourselves when someone blurts out something he later apologizes for. But a word, once spoken, lingers forever; to keep peace we pretend to forget, but we never do. Strange that a spoken word can have such lasting power when words carved on stone monuments vanish in spite of all our efforts to preserve them. What we would lose persists, lodged in our minds, and what we would keep is lost to water, moths, moss.

Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine ― that is, activity ― which could solve it, is seen as odious. Archery? It is too cold, and besides, the butts need re-covering; the rats have been at the straw. Music? To hear it is tedious; to compose it, too taxing. And so on. Of all the afflictions, boredom is ultimately the most unmanning. Eventually, it transforms you into a great nothing who does nothing ― a cousin to sloth and a brother to melancholy.

The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.