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So many maybes! Yet (this is the tantalizing promise of clues!) one of these maybes however improbable and implausible is the Truth.

But I still didn't understand any of these things. I had just used these mysterious, powerful forces as a layman uses electricity today, with some knowledge of their habits but not of their inner rules and dangers. Thus the forces reacted differently from my expectations every time. They kept turning against me to crush me, acting on some unknown law that controlled them.

"My darling Giuseppe! I'm so weak, weak and feeble as the moon up there. What would I do without your life-giving sun?"

"That is the way it should be, Marietta. The Sun and the Moon are indeed
a mystic couple, and no two beings can come into true union unless one soul has the attributes of the one and the other soul those of the other. Then they radiate toward each other and provide love and light."

Neither of us really likes being alone; we feel happiest when we're together. So why shouldn't you take me as your wife? Just because the world disapproves? Because it is unusual? Well, I thank God we are not usual people. It is only a matter of whether we dare to get on the right path in spite of every one — whether we dare to be happy in our own way.

The Elixir you acquired by murder has made you a prisoner at the lowest point in the world of emotions. It has literally poisoned you. The only remedy is transmutation, and you'll have to do it on all three levels at once. Transmutation will be your salvation. You'll have to work hard, studying and experimenting until you find the secret of the three keys that open simultaneously. Nobody else can do it for you.

There was really an unshakable order behind the professor's absentminded,
disordered life. The only things that were real to him were his studies, notes, and contemplations. Rank, authority, success, wealth, pleasure—
all the things that occupy the average man were peripheral to him. Soon I
began to realize that he was plagued with an inner conflict; his sharp, dry
humor and his compassion fought in him continually.

As for my mother, I never saw her sit down anywhere. She even ate standing up. She was always working, the heavy, large-boned body slaving
silently. Sometimes she groaned, but that was only when she had the pain in her legs. I was the only one who knew about it. Once I had asked her if something was hurting her. She looked at me and smiled, a smile that transformed her into a beautiful and intelligent gentlewoman.

I have forgiven you. It is not I who punish you. You yourself are both murderer and victim. The sin and salvation from it lie in yourself alone. The earth is just a dark reflection of the astral ocean, a reflection that shows everything upside down. What seems bad is good and what seems good is bad. What seems to be destruction is really construction. Birth and death are really interchangeable terms...

The Marquis had given me free access to his extensive library. Here in
this dusty, cold chamber the astral beings had reigned for centuries like bats in an otherwise uninhabited tower. It contained a rare collection of the occult — manuscripts so ancient they crumbled to the touch, forbidden works on black magic, treatises on alchemy, the Kabala, religious works, and the profane works of excommunicated priests..

Fear: a spider scuttling in the corner of your eye, you need not acknowledge by looking at it.

..for she has known from the start of the pregnancy that she is alone in this, in this matter of the baby, the responsibility falls entirely upon her, like a mountain landslide.
You are in this alone, you wanted this. You have no one but yourself.

If you would know fear, bring a baby into the world.>

But Wendy refused to be forewarned. Could not be dissuaded. Loved him very very much.
Understanding that he was a brilliant person, a gifted artist, “genius” - probably. Can’t be measured by ordinary means. “Moody” sometimes- but who isn’t?
Insisting she wasn’t marrying him to “save” him. Was not marrying him for any reason except she loved him.

Like all other court parasites, his own welfare and security hung by a slender thread. All courtiers, I had realized, revolved around a moody sun that was far less trustworthy than the industrious one that centers our Cosmos. Kings, Princes, and Counts indulged themselves at will throughout the boundaries of their power, held back only by the leash of their own impulses.

My world was a gray, hazy blur in which only two things stood out—my fear and my guilty conscience.

"I have never felt so worthwhile," Bahr said. "You have given me transcendent feelings and ideas that might well make me conceited, something no worm of a man has a right to feel. I'm going and look in the mirror."

"Look inside yourself", Rochard replied. "The mirror image is just reality's
shadow."

The many contradictions in Rochard's personality did not bother me
anymore for I understood that a sage can hide only behind a shield of foolishness. This was why he acted the charlatan.

I had given up faith in everything and resigned myself— complete nihilism brings peace, you know. Now you come in and disturb my personal religion and urge me to become a heretic. You have made me doubt my own doubt. And the most astonishing thing is that you haven't done it by arguments—it's your very personality. It's not what you say; it's what you are. You radiate certainty without direct communication.

My craving for knowledge was genuine, of course, and so was my Elixir monomania. He was fully aware of my immaturity, but this was canceled out by his deep, humane kindness and his empathy for me. Thus the Great Planner's design was woven into the vast fabric of destiny according to its predetermined plan.

I know that you’re telling me some of the truth and making some of this up. I know the real reason you cling to me. You are still an unripe fruit, in spite of your sharp mind. Knowledge in your hands could become either a key or a weapon..

Where does a man run? To meet happiness or unhappiness? Where is Yasnaya -- the light of the eyes, a nest of joys and sorrows? But what is there? What is he doing there? Is he expected there or is he running like that, of his own accord? Oh God,well,there's the count, Lev Nikolaevich, well,how so!.. Well,let it be,the count...What business does he have with the count? Or does he owe him something? Pure trebien

Gentlemen, you have all been very dear to my soul. It is a real misfortune to part from you. But duty is above all. May God forbid that I forget you!

Bad drink and bad tradition: first to drink to warm yourself, then to be thrown into the cold to sober yourself up, and then to drink again to warm yourself up... And he started laughing out loud.
He looked like a shriveled and bitter bird, with a long lilac beak, but he had a charming laugh.
- In Italy, is it probably hot? asked the guard.
- Hot, hot, Ghiros started laughing, and still hot.

…between the lines, the recipients of her emails might conclude that Karin hadn’t personal news to tell them, or to wish to tell them. No news in the life of an unmarried woman in her mid-forties means exactly what it suggests: no news.

Thinking, if my mother doesn’t remember me, what will become of me?

You are so old-fashioned, E__ says, embarrassed. You are so predictable.

Is that why you called me last night? -- because I'm so predictable.

Tediously predictable. Of course. Why would you even ask...

Lovesick is an insipid word, still more an insipid condition. No dignity in lovesick.

When I'm in an emotional state I distrust words, especially my own, for a misspoken word cannot be retrieved, and is irrevocable.

For we were of that age when an appetite for justice is fierce as an appetite for food when you are starving.

A zero-sum game depends upon the actions of others. That is the tragedy of life lived among others.
Definition of others : not-you