"The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."

"Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue."

"The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste."

"Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin."

"The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed - it is a process of elimination."

"If you don't die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young."

"Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival."

"Elegance is achieved when all that is superfluous has been discarded and the human being discovers simplicity and concentration: the simpler and more sober the posture, the more beautiful it will be."