Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all.

Nothing is good in moderation. You cannot know good in anything until you have torn the heart out of it by excess.

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

Ones real life is often the life that one does not lead.

It would leave no room for developments and I intend to develop in many directions.

Now produce your explanation and pray make it improbable.