“Some mysteries are simply irresistible,” she said. “They have components that alter a life.”

“If only we would wake from (these) states of oblivion with some certain sense that there was no mystery to life at all, that cruelty was purely impersonal, but we don't.”

“Who has a right to tell me I have no gift, no talent, no passion ...' he murmured. 'Why do people say those things to you when youre young? Doesn't seem fair, does it?''No, darling, it's not fair,'she said. 'But the mystery is why you listen.”

“Something in me was responding now as the audience responded, not in fear, but in some human way, to the magic of that fragile painted set, the mystery of the lighted world there.”

“A singer can shatter glass with the proper high note," he said, "but the simplest way to break glass is simply to drop it on the floor.”

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.”

“I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened; that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse -- the things which often make dialogue impossible.And after a long interval he said, 'I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.”