“Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.”

“People don't love each other at our age —they please each other, that's all. Later on when you're old and impotent, you can love somebody. At our age, you just think you do. That's all it is.”

“What is stronger in us — passion or habit? Or are all the violent impulses, all the whirl of our desires and turbulent passions, only the consequence of our ardent age, and is it only through youth that they seem deep and shattering?”

“Our kiss eclipses all others, real, imagine, dreamed of. It is the beginning of time, it is the end of the ages.”

“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.”

“All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the base of our splendid failure to do the impossible.”