“I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.”
“The cause of right is never lost, Leal. I've often thought the biggest damned fool in the world could to down in history as a great man if he would just consistently vote for the greatest good of the greatest number - Kilkenny”
“A mistake constantly made by those who should know better is to judge people of the past by our standards rather than their own. The only way men or women can be judged is against the canvas of their own time.”
“I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label.”
“Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.”
“- This Indian wife you have...- Had. She's dead.- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring upan unhappy memory.- I can't remember anything unhappyabout Destarte. ”