“A little girl's fantasies are one thing, and literature is another; just as numbers require rules to give them human meaning, words, too, demand a form to turn them into literature.”

“Clarice scrawled, 'A question from when I was a little girl that I can answer only now: are rocks made, or are they born? Answer: rocks are.”

“Vocation is different from talent. One can have vocation and not have talent; one can be called and not know how to go.”

“I studied mathematics which is the madness of reason.”

“There is no right to punish. There is only the power to punish,' she wrote. 'A man is punished for his crime because the State is stronger than he; the great crime of War is not punished because beyond the individual there is mankind, and beyond mankind there is nothing at all.”

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' The list is long, Robert. Very long. And will grow longer still."He smiled. "Then let us begin with number one . . .”

“For who would I be if I tried to be someone besides Jane? The poser of the world try so hard to be what they are not, and yet... how fatigued they must be Perhaps I am not smart enough to be one of them. Nor strong enough in constitution.”