“The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested so much within oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.”

“He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.”

“Except that love - that mysterious, vast, all-encompassing power - could not possibly be contained in a single word.”

“To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so thrilling!”

“When a book lies unopened it might contain anything in the world, anything imaginable. It therefore, in that pregnant moment before opening, contains everything. Every possibility, both perfect and putrid. Surely such mysteries are the most enticing things...grant[ed] us in this mortal mere...Unknown and therefore infinite.”

“The final mystery is oneself.”