Toccara Joslyn

“Dintotdeauna cititul însemnase pentru el bucuria cea mai mare și mai statornică, și cu atât mai mult îl pasiona acum, când în povestea triumfului sau a înfrângerilor, a suferințelor sau a bucuriilor altora găsea o evadare din umbra stăruitoare a propriei sale nereușite... în fiecare carte pe care o citea încerca să descopere țelul care ar putea da vieții lui un nou sens.”
― Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy

“petty despotisms reduce to nothing the value of public opinion.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“...“Oh, Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them,” exclaimed Anne. “You mayn’t get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them. Mrs. Lynde says, ‘Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.’ But I think it would be worse to expect nothing than to be disappointed.”...”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Whitman’s art: to promise absolute self-revelation and give us fresh gestures of evasion, hesitation, concealment. Better thus, though Walt proclaimed: “I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself.” Stevens learned from Whitman “the intricate evasions of as.”
― Harold Bloom, The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime