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“At the beginning of all love there is a private treaty each of the lovers makes with himself or herself, an agreement to set aside what is wrong with the other for the sake of what is right. Love is spring after winter. It comes to heal life's wounds, inflicted by the unloving cold. When that warmth is born in the heart the imperfections of the beloved are as nothing, less than nothing, and the secret treaty with oneself is easy to sign. The voice of doubt is stilled. Later, when love fades, the secret treaty looks like folly, but if so, it's a necessary folly, born of lovers' belief in beauty, which is to say, in the possibility of the impossible thing, true love.”
― Salman Rushdie, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

“Poverty is a reaper: it harvests everything inside us that might have made us capable of social intercourse with others, and leaves us empty, purged of feeling, so that we may endure all the darkness of the present day.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

“You will see, as time goes by", said Ibn Rushd, "that in the end it will be religion that will make men turn away from God. The godly are God's worst advocates.”
― Salman Rushdie, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

“If there is one thing I detest, it's when people transform their powerlessness or alienation into a creed.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog