“[...]one should act as if the things he cherished the most were already lost or broken.”

“To fall in love and to commit yourself to love means you should make your loved one the one thing you cherish the most.”

“Of all things broken and lost, porcelain troubles me most.”

“Whoever would undertake some atrocious enterprise should act as if it were already accomplished should impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past.”

“But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why should he say one thing so positively, and mean another all the while, was most unaccountable. How were people, at that rate, to be understood?”

“They were an elite, living at the center of the world's greatest power, and one of their most cherished privileges was the cultivation of the life of the mind.”