“For you know that I myself am a labyrinth, where one easily gets lost.”

“To wait so long/And want a man refined and strong/Is not at all uncommon. And yet to wait one hundred years/Without a tear, without a care/Makes for a very rare woman. So here our tale appears to show/How marriage deferred/Brings joy unheard/Nothing lost after a century or so. But others love with more ardor/And wed quickly out of passion/Whatever they do/I won’t deplore/Nor shall I preach a lesson.”

“FIRST MORALGood manners are not easyThey need a little care,But when we least expect itBring rewards both rich and rare.SECOND MORALBrute force or bribes of diamondsBend others to your will,But gentle words have greater powerAnd gain more conquests still.”

“There is a sense in which I am pretty sure this makes no sense. I don't know where this is going. I don't know how it ends.”

“when I was a boy I used to dream of becomingthe village idiot.I used to lie in bed and imagine myself thehappy idiotable to get food easily...and easy sympathy,a planned confusion of not too much love or effort.some would claim that I have succeeded.”

“All through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire- a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.”

“I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading.”