"What war has always been is a puberty ceremony."

“For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.”

“People think I'll kill you if you make a joke. I compare it to Clint Eastwood. I've only seen Clint Eastwood in movies. You think if you make a joke to Eastwood, he might shoot you.”

“Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not 'real'. No. But what was 'real'? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality.”

Source : Susan Hill (1986). “The Woman in Black”

“Drift beautifully on the surface, and you will die unbeautifully in the depths.”

Source : Richard Ellmann (2013). “Oscar Wilde”, p.510, Vintage

“I guess I've been naive my entire life.”

“I write all the time - I write poetry, I love to write”

“It only takes one match to ignite a haystack, or one remark to fire a mind.”

Source : Lawrence Durrell (2015). “The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx”, p.170, Faber & Faber

“This breakdown in the bicameral mind in what is called the Intermediate Period is reminiscent at least of those periodic breakdowns of Mayan civilizations when all authority suddenly collapsed, and the population melted back into tribal living in the jungles.”