Gardner

“There are worse things than killing men, Bayard. There are worse things than being killed. Sometimes I think the finest thing that can happen to a man is to love something, a woman preferably, well, hard hard hard, then to die young because he believed what he could not help but believe and was what he could not (could not? would not) help but be.”
― William Faulkner, The Unvanquished

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Maybe times are never strange to women: it is just one continuous monotonous thing full of the repeated follies of their menfolks.”
― William Faulkner, The Unvanquished: The Corrected Text

“Empathize with stupidity and you’re halfway to thinking like an idiot.”
― Iain M. Banks