Don Quixote — I read that every year, as some do the Bible.

I dont hate it he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark; I dont. I dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!

Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.

A man's moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.

In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it.

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.