When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to read more

When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.

There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.

There is no aphrodisiac like innocence.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame.

Sometimes it is a great joy just to listen to someone we love talking.

Sometimes it is a great joy just to listen to someone we love talking.

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, read more

to be nobody-but-myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me everybody else means, to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some read more

Shame and guilt are noble emotions essential in the maintenance of civilized society, and vital for the development of some of the most refined and elegant qualities of human potential.

Unexplained joy is always so keen that... it seems to hold enough to reconcile one to the inevitable.

Unexplained joy is always so keen that... it seems to hold enough to reconcile one to the inevitable.

In private grief with careless scorn. In public seem to triumph and not to mourn.

In private grief with careless scorn. In public seem to triumph and not to mourn.