“Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily cracked, and never well mended.”

“A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”

“The serious people who took him seriously never felt quite sure of his deportment; they were somehow aware that trusting their reputations for judgment with him was like furnishing a nursery with egg-shell china.”

“Desire is a chipped glass. You keep pouring to fill it up but the cracks will leak forever. You'll never fulfill it.”

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”

“Best to let the broken glass be broken glass, let it splinter into smaller pieces and dust and scatter. Let the cracks between things widen until they are no longer cracks but the new places for things. That was where they were now. The world wasn't ending: it had ended and now they were in the new place. They could not recognize it because they had never seen it before.”