“Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human heart; and perhaps it is due to the gardener's innate love of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive.”

“The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.”

“I think perhaps love thrives on unlikely circumstances and chance : life thrives on these principles, and is life not love? And love not life?”

“Heart’s blood and bitter pain belong to love,And tales of problems no one can remove;Cupbearer, fill the bowl with blood, not wine -And if you lack the heart’s rich blood take mine.Love thrives on inextinguishable pain,Which tears the soul, then knits the threads again.A mote of love exceeds all bounds; it givesThe vital essence to whatever lives.But where love thrives, there pain is always found;Angels alone escape this weary round -They love without that savage agonyWhich is reserved for vexed humanity.”

“Humans create terrible things. Why do they make things that only bring them pain? It’s because they don’t know what’s comfortable anymore. So perhaps they don’t know that they are in pain…”

“Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming sword. Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either, or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.”