Devians Shade

“To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost."
So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions."
An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“Like all strong people, she suffered always a measure of loneliness; she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“I was at a loss suddenly; but conscious all the while of how Armand listened; that he listened in the way that we dream of others listening, his face seeming to reflect on every thing said. He did not start forward to seize on my slightest pause, to assert an understanding of something before the thought was finished, or to argue with a swift, irresistible impulse -- the things which often make dialogue impossible.
And after a long interval he said, 'I want you. I want you more than anything in the world.”
― Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

“Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn't quite know what.
So he decided to do something helpful instead.”
― Alan Alexander Milne, Winnie the Pooh (illustrated edition): Children's Classics