The world is surprisingly hard to destroy.

The hated innocent becomes hateful. Goodness withers when it is continuously ground underfoot.

Interpretation gives knowledge value, but it must evolve as new knowledge emerges. From a myriad incomplete truth, a greater whole.

Your life is not a tragedy. It’s history, and it’s yours.

It’s more like ... she has grown too big and feels trapped in her own skin.

What if opposites could be combined and transcended, paradox embraced, a whole life lived in contradictory case?

She wanted to talk about it, to tell the peasants in the fields and the nobles in their palashos—the cows in the pastures, the very birds in the air— that everything was nothing.It was a delightful thought because it meant (to Tess) that one was free to choose, or decline to choose, without shame or coercion. For someone who was nothing, anything was possible.

I think I can show them the path out. I understand now that it’s not a question of faith or hope; it exists, and we can find it. It’s going to take some time, though.

Love and guilt are like ham and eggs. So many people enjoy them together, but there’s no rule saying you must have one with the other. They don’t even come from the same animal.