“You are like a fire: you warm me.”

“Oho, now I know what you are. You are an advocate of Useful Knowledge.... Well, allow me to introduce myself to you as an advocate of Ornamental Knowledge. You like the mind to be a neat machine, equipped to work efficiently, if narrowly, and with no extra bits or useless parts. I like the mind to be a dustbin of scraps of brilliant fabric, odd gems, worthless but fascinating curiosities, tinsel, quaint bits of carving, and a reasonable amount of healthy dirt. Shake the machine and it goes out of order; shake the dustbin and it adjusts itself beautifully to its new position.”

“You are certainly unique. Everyone is unique. Nobody has ever suffered quite like you before because nobody has ever been you before.”

“Any theologian understands martyrdom, but only the martyr experiences the fire.”

“He gave me this advice one time: Never marry your childhood sweetheart, he said; the reasons that make you choose her will all turn into reasons why you should have rejected her.”

“Men have this climacteric, you know, like women. Doctors deny it, but I have met some very menopausal persons in their profession.”

“Just about all men need a woman in one way or another, unless they’re very strange indeed. Tormenting you refreshes him. And you shouldn’t underestimate the gratitude all men feel for women’s beauty. Men who truly don’t like flowers are very uncommon and men who don’t respond to a beautiful woman are even more uncommon. It’s not primarily sexual; it’s a lifting of the spirits beauty gives. He’ll be in to torment you, and tease you, and enrage you, but really to have a good, refreshing look at you.”