“I am kissing her for a reason that transcends want and need, that feels elemental to our existence, a molecular component on which ouruniverse will be built.”

“..Some of our loves and attachments are elemental and beyond our choosing, and for that very reason they come spiced with pain and regret and need and hollowness and a feeling as close to anger as I will ever be able to imagine. ”

“Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects. pg. xxxiii”

“The only sovereign I can allow to rule me is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists exists; what is is. From this irreducible, bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. This is the foundation from which life is embraced. Reason is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts, nor are they a means to discovering them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality–it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss we refuse to see." -Richard”

“My beloved is the sunAnd I am the earth that thrives only in her warmth. My beloved is the rainAnd I am the grass that thirsts for her quenching kiss. My beloved is the windAnd I am the wings that soar when she fills me with her gentle strength.My beloved is the rockUpon which rests the happiness of all my days.—The Elements of Love, a poem by Aileron v'En Kavali of the Fey”

“The essential element in the black art of obscurantism is not that it wants to darken individual understanding, but that it wants to blacken our picture of the world, and darken our idea of existence.”