Paula

“Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can't be helped. And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

“But then how can we trust ancient wisdom, whose traces you are always seeking, if it is handed down by lying books that have interpreted it with such license?

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means, a precept that the commentators of the holy books had very clearly in mind.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“Try for yourself, if that be your spirit. I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“William snapped, 'Drop it; we're looking for a Greek book!'
'This?' I asked, showing him a work whose pages were covered with abstruse letters. And William said, 'No, that's Arabic, idiot! Bacon was right: the scholar's first duty is to learn languages!'
'But you don't know Arabic, either!' I replied, irked, to which William answered, 'At least I understand when it IS Arabic!”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose