There is no creation without faith and hope. There is no faith and hope that does not express itself in creation.

Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?

But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.

It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.

The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose.

Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day, and some say, to the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.

I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps