Catherine

“It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me.”
― John Fowles, The Collector

“The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke.
We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours.”
― John Fowles, The Collector

“I know that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of great emotion, well, he leaves me cold.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“Take advantage of it now, while you are young, and suffer all you can, because these things don't last your whole life.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera