“Though whether the mass murder of strangers for one’s principles ranks higher in virtue than attacking one’s neighbours for the hell of it is a point I’m glad I don’t have to settle.”

“It is often easier to fight for one’s principles than it is to live up to them.”

“It is strange. A man gets to know a woman. For a long time they are one. They have mingled their thoughts, their bodies, their hopes, their odours, their lives. They are one. And then a while later they are strangers. They are not one any more. Just as though it had never happened, as though looking at oneself in the mirror and seeing a stranger instead of one’s reflection.”

“There was a time when I didn’t at any minute have the slightest idea how I could reach the next one. Yes, one can wage war in this world, ape love, torture one’s fellow man, or merely say evil of one’s neighbour while knitting. But, in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman.”

“To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s own life. It is no less than a denial of the soul.”

“I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.”