“I would rather they did not speak of it at all, until I am out of the district."Mrs. Bennet was all amazement."Until you are out of the district, child! What else are people to speak of when they hear you are to marry a man so rich, so highly placed in society, so... rich?”

“He turned. "She would never marry for wordly advantage.""Yet when she experiences the consequence she gains in such a marriage, she will feel compensated for giving up her freedom!""Her freedom!""I think her much at liberty.”

“This is wrong. Out of this world wrong.But then again, so am I.”

“I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all, and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.”

“I do not think you would be so quick to approve if it was your son," he said. The Major frowned as he tried to quell the immediate recognition that the young man was right. He fumbled for a reply that would be true but also helpful. "I do not mean to offend you," added Abdul Wahid."Not at all," said the Major. "You are not wrong—at least, in the abstract. I would be unhappy to think of my son becoming entangled in such a way and any people, including myself, may be guilty of a certain smug feeling that it would never happen in our families.""I thought so," said Abdul Wahid with a grimace."Now, don’t you get offended, either," said the Major. "What I’m trying to say is that I think that is how everyone feels in the abstract. But then life hands you something concrete—something concrete like little George—and abstracts have to go out the window.”

“The marvelous richness of human experience would losesomething of rewarding joy if there were no limitations toovercome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful ifthere were no dark valleys to traverse.”

“The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words ofsome loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures--solitude, books and imagination--outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.”