“The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body.”

“Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”

“As birds' wings beat the solid air without which none could fly so words freed by the imagination affirm reality by their flight.”

“Even when there were no more options for the body, the heart's wishes find a way out, and as with all warmth, love rises. Besides, the will to fly was in the nature of the soul, so its home had to be up above”

“As we have explained, in first love the soul is taken long before the body; later, the body is taken long before the soul; sometimes the soul is not taken at all.”

“No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is...dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals, with loving one place-home-above all others.I embrace the world on a scale that allows genuine love-the small places like a town, a neighborhood, a street-and I love life, because of what the beauty of this world and of this life portend.”