“I read like the flame reads the wood.”

“I can't read fiction without visualizing every scene. The result is it becomes a series of pictures rather than a book.”

“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall...”

“My own dim life should teach me this,That life shall live for evermore,Else earth is darkness at the core,And dust and ashes all that is;This round of green, this orb of flame,Fantastic beauty such as lurksIn some wild Poet, when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim.What then were God to such as I?'Twere hardly worth my while to chooseOf things all mortal, or to useA tattle patience ere I die;'Twere best at once to sink to peace,Like birds the charming serpent draws,To drop head-foremost in the jawsOf vacant darkness and to cease.”

“There are temptations more attractive than angels. Liberty, Patriotism, the good of humanity – words like that are the silver scales of the Tempter’s flaming wings”

“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

“Within minutes we had left the station and were entering a cutting with trees on both sides, so the horror of the massacre was now out of sight. The train left the wooded cutting, and we saw Strausberg on fire. There were Russian tanks in the streets and soldiers on foot entering buildings. People were being dragged out, and shot.”