“To be fair, I am not the same man. The one who listened. The one who believed her.”

“I am one who could have forgotten the plague, listening to Boccaccio's stories; and I am not ashamed of it.”

“I am a pretty, useless ornament who always believed she'd have a man to take care of her.”

“And I am not one of those women who trips twice over the same stone.”

“Yes, I am cruel—since you take so much delight in that word-and am I not entitled to be so? Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise.”

“If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person”