A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.

There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful.

As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world. I cannot conceive of any other explanation. I am convinced that there is no other, and that if the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. Pleasure for the beautiful body, but pain for the beautiful soul.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl...I have ever met since...I met you.

The General was essentially a man of peace, except in his domestic life.