Alejandro

“You heard him say it? 'Pain's the only evil I know about.' You heard that?"
The monk nodded solemnly.
"And that society is the only thing that determines whether an act is wrong or not? That too?"
"Yes."
"Dearest God, how did those two heresies get back into the world after all this time? Hell has limited imaginations down there. 'The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.”
― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz

“How is it that a little incident like this suddenly comes back to one, whereas something that moved one deeply at the time can simply be forgotten with the passage of the years?”
― Murasaki Shikibu, The Diary of Lady Murasaki

“The oven became hotter and hotter, and Hansel began to sweat. Then a delicious smell wafted to his nostrils. Oh no! he thought. I'm cooking! He sniffed at the air. And I smell delicious!”
― Adam Gidwitz, A Tale Dark & Grimm

“Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!"

How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am.”
― Murasaki Shikibu, The Diary of Lady Murasaki