Marshall Waring

“... the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

“How was it possible that entire lives could change, could be destroyed, and that streets and buildings remained the same, she wondered.”
― Tatiana de Rosnay, Sarah's Key

“Do you know what an involuntary act signifies? Psychoanalysts say that it reflects the insidious maneuvering of one’s hidden unconscious. What a pointless theory, in fact. When we do something involuntarily, this is the most visible sign of the power of our conscious will; for our will, when opposed by emotion, makes use all of its wiles to attain its ends.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“If one does not react to gossip, the informer hushes more quickly.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master