“Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known.”

“To desire to change one’s past means there is a desire to change oneself. To desire to change oneself, one must learn to change.”

“If you desire to know or learn anything to your advantage, then take delight in being unknown and unregarded.A true understanding and humble estimate of oneself is the highest and most valuable of all lessons. To take no account of oneself, but always to think well and highly of others is the highest wisdom and perfection.”

“I thought that day was the end of my life. It was the end of the world as I knew and understood it. I was taking another step into the unknown, again, onto a path unknown, grappled with fear and anxiety.”

“I take the only desire one can really permit oneself. Freedom, Alvah, freedom. . .To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.”

“A lady should never feel anxious about her behavior. The status is bred in the bone. To show anxiety is to lower oneself. Anxiety is vulgar.”