Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

Life is made up of marble and mud.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

—Nathaniel Hawthorne

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.

—Richard Bach

It seems to me that the experiences that stay with you, the things you’ll always remember, aren’t the ones you can force, or go looking for. I’ve always thought of those things as the ones that somehow find you.

—Jessi Kirby in Golden

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

—Douglas Adams

People should not judge failed love affairs as failed experiences but as part of the growth process. Something does not have to end well for it to have been one of the most valuable experiences of a lifetime.

—Ethel Person

I should let people in. If they leave, they leave. If I break, I break. It happens to everyone.

—Sarah Addison Allen in Garden Spells