“Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most.”

“Using your imagination means that you are using your most powerful tool of creation, manifestation and modification”

“Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.”

“Did someone actually have to do bad things to be a bad boy, or was it all about the potential? If it was the potential that counted, then maybe it was the restraint that was so sexy, knowing that he could do something dangerous and powerful but had the restraint not to.”

“For women, marriages foreclosed often resulted in anaccumulation of booty; for men, these failed projects of implausible optimism were more likely to manifest themselves in material lack. It was hard to resist the metaphorical impression that women got to keep the past itself, whereas men were simply robbed of it.”

“Knowledge is onlypotential power. For the power to be manifested, it must beapplied.”