"Shadows are in reality, when the sun is shining, the most conspicuous thing in a landscape, next to the highest lights."

“It is easy to see things in retrospect. But I was ignorant then of everything but my own happiness, and I don’t know what else to say except that life itself seemed very magical in those days: a web of symbol, coincidence, premonition, omen. Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together–my future, my past, the whole of my life–and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!”

Source : Donna Tartt (2011). “The Secret History”, p.88, Vintage

“Did think you were here to kill time listening to Christian music until you go to heaven? We've got work to do.”

“Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.”

Source : "The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A search for Salvation" by Shafique N. Virani, (p. 28), 2007.

“There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a Miracle, and exercise our admiration, if it were done but once.”

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”

“I can't wait to make you the love of my mortal life.”

“A great many people go after success simply for the shiny prizes it brings...And nowhere is it pursued more ardently than in the city of New York.”

“Unfortunately, I am very aware of editing and I look at the monitor too much. Sometimes the monitor can become your worst enemy because you can, consciously or unconsciously, start editing yourself.”