Natalie

“the translator says that a sentence is born into this world neither good nor bad, and that to establish its character is a question of the subtlest possible adjustments, a process of intuition to which exaggeration and force are fatal. Those lines concerned the art of writing, but looking around himself in early middle age my neighbour began to see that they applied just as much to the art of living.”
― Rachel Cusk, Outline

“My hopes are not always realized, but I always hope.”
― Ovid

“A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward.”
― Ovid

“History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending