"What was getting to me was the awareness that I was no longer innocent. This was not a moralistic sense of wrongdoing, or the workings of a guilty conscience. I knew that I had made a terrible mistake, but I was not punishing myself for it. It was a physical fact that I would have to confront coolly and logically, beyond any question of punishment ( Read more... )

"Is it possible, finally, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another ( Read more... )

"I'd gotten the name from dry days in history class during a lesson on medieval fortifications: anything that involved the word star always sounded like it was speaking directly to me. The trace italienne involved triangular defensive barricades branching out around all sides of a fort: stars within stars within stars, visible from space, one layer ( Read more... )

"The individual has a host of shadows, all of whom resemble him and for the moment have an equal claim to authenticity."

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"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 ( Read more... )

I ( Read more... )