A restaurant with candles and flowers evokes more reveries than the Isle of Bali does.
In philosophy, the principles are more interesting than the examples. In literature, the examples are more interesting than the principles.
Like love, grief fades in and out.
The dignified catastrophes of tragedy bear little resemblance to the slow ruin inflicted by life.
The realism of failure, the romance of success.
The prison is the state writ small.