“If life were easy, then everyone would do it...”

“Once innocence is lost, the truth surely follows.”

“Estamos convencidos de que anda por aí, algures, a nossa alma gémea, ou mesmo mais do que isso - uma imagem de nós próprios, quase sobreponível, como um sapato da Cinderela, pronto a escorregar-nos para o pé, porque andou perdido mas foi sempre nosso”

“Temos ciúmes, não porque duvidemos deles, mas porque não acreditamos em nós”

“I spoke to Sylvia. "Do you think this is a good life?”

“The horsewife! The very basebone of the American plethora! The horsewife! Without whom the entire structure of civilian life would crumble! Without the horsewife, the whole raison d'être of our existences would be reduced, in a twinkling, to that brute level of brutality for which we so rightly reproach the filthy animals. Were it not for her enormous purchasing power and the heedless gaiety with which it is exercised, we would still be going around dressed in skins probably, with no big ticket items to fill the empty voids, in our homes and in our hearts. The horsewife! Nut and numen of our intersubjectivity. The horsewife! The chiefest ornament on the golden tree of human suffering!”

“Imagine how a man’s life would be if he trusted that he was loved by God. How could he interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really.”