Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

- Why you?
- (...) I’m the best.
- Modest of you.
- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.

...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.

Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.

Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.

It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.