1. Gone with the Wind

• "They had the vigor and alertness of country people who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with dull things in books." (2)

• "There were pain and bewilderment in her face, the bewilderment of a pampered child who has always had her own way for the asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the unpleasantness of life." (14)

• "It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at Tara, where her husband's blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded." (27)

• "There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might adopt. Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving. And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness." (56-57)

• "Quick though her brain was, it was not made for analysis..." (61)

• "Large numbers of books always depressed her, as did people who liked to read large numbers of books." (80)

• "When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feedings of several extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty." (106).

• "There was no servant so stupid that she did not find some redeeming trait of loyalty and kindness, no girl so ugly and disagreeable that she could not discover grace of form or nobility of character in her, and no man so worthless or boring that she did not view him in the light of his possibilities rather than his actualities." (108)

• "Because of these qualities that came sincerely and spontaneously from a generous heart, everyone flocked about her, for who can resist the charm of one who discovers in others admirable qualities undreamed of even by himself?" (108)

• "What Melanie did was no more than all Southern girls were taught to do - to make those about them feel at ease and pleased with themselves. It was this happy feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted and safe in possession with unpuctured vanity was more likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration." (108-109)

• "In fact, men willingly gave the ladies everything in the world except credit for having intelligence." (109)

• "What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one." (135)

• "And you look gorgeous when you are mad." (136)

• "She had learned to say, " I won't think of this or that bothersome thought now. I'll think about it tomorrow". Generally when tomorrow came, the thought either did not occur at all or it was so attenuated by the delay it was not very troublesome." (146)

• "Her love was still a young girl's adoration for a man she could not understand, a man who possessed all the qualities she did not own but which she admired. He was still a young girl's dream of the Perfect Knight and her dream asked no more than acknowledgement of his love, went no further than hopes of a kiss." (150)

• "Most of what he was saying went over her head, as did any conversation that was not personal." (168)

• "The women did not speak, but their pale set faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louder than wailing." (178)

• ""He's a gentleman," said Rhett, and Scarlett wondered how it was possible to convey such cynicism and contempt in that one honorable word."" (200)

• "That's the trouble with Yankee girls. They'd be most charming if they weren't always telling you that they can take care of themselves, thank you. Generally they are telling the truth, God help them. And so men let them take care of themselves." (215)

• "They knew they were sitting on a volcano, but until that volcano erupted there was nothing they could do. So why worry now?" (229)

• "I should love you, for you are charming and talented at many useless accomplishments. But many ladies have charm and accomplishments and are just as useless as you are." (237)

• "... she had left her girlhood behind her. She was no longer plastic clay, yielding imprint to each new experience. The clay has hardened..." (294)

• "... like others suddenly elevated to authority, all the bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies and refuse her authority." (302)

• "But it was better to know the worst than to wonder." (312)

• "... that lack of fear has gotten me into a lot of trouble and cost me a lot of happiness. God intended women to be timid frightened creatures and there's something unnatural about a woman who isn't afraid... always save something to fear - even as you save something to love." (317)

• "Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet and dancing slippers had slipped away and there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies and turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood." (343)

• "Longing hearts could only stand so much longing." (355)

• "When such thoughts came she did not pray hastily to God, telling Him she did not mean it. God did not frighten her any more." (355-356)

• "She prayed a good deal, for when Scarlett came into her room without knocking, she always hound her on her knees by her bed, The sight never failed to annoy her, for Scarlett help that the time for prayer had passed. If God had seen fit to punish them so, then God could very well do without prayers. Religion had always been a bargaining process with Scarlett. She promised God good behavior in exchange for favors. God had broken the bargain time and again, to her way of thinking, and she felt that she owed Him nothing at all now." (257)

• "He was just plain Cracker, a small farmer, half-educated, prone to grammatical errors and ignorant of some of the finer manners the O'Haras were accustomed to in gentlemen. In fact, Scarlett wondered if he could be called a gentleman at all and decided that he couldn't. Melanie hotly defended him, saying that anyone who had Will's kind heart and thoughtfulness of others was of gentle birth." (360)

• "In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out." (368)

• ""These are the most beautiful hands I know"..."They are beautiful because they are strong and every callous is a medal, Scarlett, every blister an award for bravery and unselfishness." (368)

• "Every day my accursed shrinking from realities makes it harder for me to face the new realities." (368)

• ""But, Ashley, what are you afraid of?

"Oh, nameless things. Things which sound very silly when they are put into words. Mostly of having life suddenly become too real, of being brought into personal, too personal, contact with some of the simple facts of life." (369)

• "Starving's not pleasant.. I know for I've starved, but I'm not afraid of that. I am afraid of facing life without the slow beauty of our old world that is gone." (371)

• "I can't make you understand because you don't know the meaning of fear. You have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of those qualities. You'll never mind facing realities and you'll never want to escape from them as I do." (371)

• "The words, hospitality and loyalty and honor, meant more to him than she did." (374)

• "Was there nothing Many did not overhear? Scarlett wondered how that ponderous body which shook the floors could move with such savage stealth when its owner wished to eavesdrop." (383)

• "They'll go right on thinking and living as they always have, and nothing will change them." (385)

• "Perhaps it was that there was nothing she would not do, and there were so many things these people would rather die than do." (427)

• "Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovery that a woman has a brain." (433)

• "A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she had discovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasant fiction still stuck in her mind." (435)

• "Influence is everything, Scarlett. Remember that when you get arrested. Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question." (438)

• "I've found out that monty is the most important thing in the world and, as God as my witness, I don't ever intend to be without it again." (443)

• "Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be guided by her husband's superior knowledge, should accept his opinions in full and have none of her own. He would have given most women their own way. Women were such funny little creatures and it never hurt to humor their small whims. Mild and gentle by nature, it was not in him to deny a wife much. He would have enjoyed gratifying the foolish notions of some soft little person and scolding her lovingly for her stupidity and extravagance." (448)

• "This wasn't the soft, sweet, feminine person he had taken to wife. In the brief period of courtship, he thought he had never known a woman more attractively feminine in her reactions to life, ignorant, timid, and helpless. Now her reactions were all masculine. Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles, she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was brisk and decisive and she made up her mind instantly and with no girly shilly-shallying. She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes peculiar to women." (450)

• "She could never respect a man who let her run over him and the timid, hesitant attitude he displayed in any unpleasant situation, with her or with others, irratated her unbearably." (452)

• "Violent blood was in them all, perilously close to the surface, lurking just beneath the kindly courteous exteriors." (457)

• "Scarlett had little use this days for honesty in herself, but the less she valued it in herself the more she was beginning to value it in others." (470)

• "Her pleasure in these thoughts of the future was undimmed by any realization that she had no real desire to be unselfish or charitable or kind. All she wanted was the reputation for possessing these qualities." (477)

• ""Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world."

"Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It's loneliness."" (479)

• "If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents' generation and from your children's generation too. They'll never understand you and they'll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: 'There's a chip off the old block,' and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: 'What an old rip Grandma must have been!' and they'll try to be like you." (480)

• "I'm sure your children won't approve of you, Scarlett... Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that they shall never know the hardships you've known. And that's all wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you'll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren." (481)

• "After three drinks, she could always say to herself: "I'll think of these things tomorrow when I can stand them better."" (484)

• "In fact, four years in a backwoods school was all the education he had ever had. He was honest and he was loyal, he was patient and he was hard working, but certainly he was not quality." (505)

• "The whole world can't lick us but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven't got anymore - and by remembering too much." (506)

• "And when it comes to something that's unpleasant but can't be helped, I don't see any sense in screaming and kicking about it. That's no way to meet the ups and downs of life." (506)

• "We're not wheat, we're buckwheat! When a storm comes along it flattens ripe wheat because it's dry and can't bend with the wind. But ripe buckwheat's got sap in it and it bends. And when the wind has passed, it springs up almost as straight and strong as before. We aren't a stiff-necked tribe. We're might limber when a hard wind's blowing, because we know it pays to be limber. When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide out time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival." (507)

• "I've felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I've had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn't be bothered about things that didn't matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and 0 well, things like that. I've been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I've dumped overboard the things that seemed least important."

"Pride and honor and truth and virtue and kindliness... You are right, Scarlett. They aren't important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying."..."It's hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it's usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you've thrown overboard, you'll find they have suffered a sea change..." (549)

• "She only did - did what she felt she had to do. And our men did what they felt they had to do. People must do what they must do. We don't all think alike or act alike and it's wrong to - to judge others by ourselves." (565)

• "But they were all well mannered, beautifully tailored, and they evidently admired hers, so it mattered little to Scarlett that they chose to live utterly in the present." (601)

• "What earthly good was a sacrifice if no one knew about it?" (633)

• "Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is." (655)

• "Pitty was always swayed more by considerations of personal comfort than by moral issues." (674)

• "She is the only dream I ever had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality." (717)

• "He never really existed at all, except in my imagination... I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes - and not him at all." (719)

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2. Blood of the Fold

• "Because someone from the palace said so. Said they were entitled to it. Said all the people were. Some, like those two, believe it; it appeals to my son's lazy ways. The young are lazy nowadays. So they sit and wait, to be given, to be taken care of, instead of seeing to their own needs. They fight over who should be given the gold first. Some of the weak and old have been killed in those fights." (12%)

• "Them's the vermin: them who take what little we can earn or make with our hands so as to promise it right back to us, expecting us to be thankful at their kind hearts; them who tempt good people to be lazy so they can rule us like they do sheep at a trough; them who took our freedom and our ways. Even a foolish old woman like me knows that lazy people don't think for themselves; they only think about themselves. I don't know what the world's coming to." (12%)

• "You can never stop all wrongdoing, but if you don't punish it, then it proliferates until anarchy wears the robes of tolerance and understanding." (36%)

• "The charge of the palace is to teach our young men to use their gift in a responsible fashion, with restraint, and knowing full well the consequences of wielding their ability. When we encourage them to act in the exact opposite fashion with regard to other aspects of their lives, it undermines out teachings." (38%)

• "Prelate, the Creator blessed people with their nature, such as it is, and there is no way we can alter it. Men and women are going to go on doing what gives them pleasure."

"Of course they are, but as long as we pay the cost of the results, we encourage more of it. If there are no consequences, then there will be no self-control. How many children have frown up without the benefit of a father because we give pregnant young women gold? Does that gold replace nurturing? How many lives have we altered, to their detriment, with our gold?"

..."Our gold helps them."

"Our gold encourages the women in the city to act irresponsibly, and to bed our young men because it means a life of support without qualifications." Verna swept her free hand around, indicating the city. "We are demeaning these people with our gold. We have rendered them little more than breeding stock." (38%)

• "Sister, suppose we preached truthfulness, and at the same time gladly hands out a penny for each lie told. What do you venture would be the result?" Sister Phoebe covered her mouth as she laughed. "I'd venture we'd soon be penniless." Sister Dulcina's blue eyes were ice. " I didn't realize you were so heartless, Prelate, as to let the Creator's newborn children go hungry." "The Creator gave their mothers breasts so they might suckle their children, not so they could wile gold from the palace," (38%)

• "It is wrong to lie, but it is worse to let the wicked triumph because you adhere to the truth at the expense of good sense." (55%)

• "...do you intend to call upon us to become warriors, to use our gift to strike down the Creator's children?" "I am telling you, Verna, that you will have to use what you know to help prevent the world from being taken forever into the darkness of tyranny. Though we struggle to help the Creator's children, we also carry a dacha, don't we? We can't help people if we are dead." (57%)

• "If you're mind was filled only with thoughts of why you were going to lose, then you couldn't think of how to win." (61%)

• "The sun has already set on the days we made those choices. We must concentrate on what we can do tomorrow; we can't relive yesterday." (64%)

• "History is rarely made by reasonable men." (64%)

• "If so, that would mean she wan't in trouble, but that she was angry with him. Anger he could accept. Trouble, he could not. If she was in trouble, he had to help her." (77%)

• "Wizard's Third Rule: Passion rules reason." (77%)

• "Their passion was going to bring them to true ruin. He wondered if this could be how violation of the Third Rule hurt people. He didn't know if it was a solid enough example. It seemed tangled with the First Rule: People would believe any lie, either because they wanted it to be true, or because they feared it was. It seemed it could be several rules mixed together, violated in tandem, and he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began." (77%)

• "Never let a beautiful woman pick your path for you when there be a man in her line of sight." (81%)

• "He wished he could read faster, because the journal was becoming so engrossing, but it still took time." (81%)

• "We don't view loyalty through you moral filter; we view our loyalty by our own standards." (87%)

 

3. Temple of the Winds

•  "...we can't truly love until we forgive another their worst crimes against us." (4%)

• "Perhaps the forgiveness of one you love is the only thing in life that really matters - the only thing that can truly heal your hear, heal your soul." (4%)

• "Hate would have destroyed me; forgiveness in my heart was the only thing that saved me." (11%)

• ""Sometimes you can only gain trust by giving it." (11%)

• "If someone is trying to stick a knife in your back, closing your eyes doesn't make you safe." (13%)

• "It is said that the greatest cruelty is drawn from those with the kindest hearts." (14%)

• "I don't know that there are unforgivable mistakes. There may be unforgivable betrayals, but not mistakes." (21%)

• "Love isn't about taking what you want; it's about wanting happiness for the one you love." (24%)

• "Debauchery was best indulged in the night. In the darkness." (34%)

• "The Wizard's Fourth Rule, he called it. He said that there was magic in forgiveness, in the Fourth Rule. Magic to heal. In the forgiveness you grant, and more so in the forgiveness you receive." (59%)

• "...look everywhere at once, see nothing to the exclusion of all else - don't allow the enemy to direct your vision, or you will see what he wishes you to see." (66%)

• "Wizard's First Rule: people would believe any lie, either because they wanted to believe it was true, or because they feared it was." (68%)

• "You, too, misunderstand what I meant about duty. To the right person, the person who is truly born to it, duty is a form of love, through which all is possible. Duty is not always a denial of things, but an expansion of them to others. Duty is not always a chore, but is best carried out with love." (85%)

​

4. Verity

• "Death by routine." (1%)

• "Most people come to New York to be discovered. The rest of us come here to hide." (2%)

• "It's what you do when you've experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you... people worse off than you... and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you." (2%)

• "I think the idea of me is better than the reality of me." (8%)

• "...thinking I'm not good enough is part of the writing process. It's part of mine anyway. For me, there are three steps to completing each of my books. 1) Start the book and hate everything I write. 2) Keep writing the book despite hating everything I write. 3) Finish the book and pretend I'm happy with it." (13%)

• "Weird how his potential discomfort brings me comfort. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work." (15%)

• "And that's what love at first sight is. It isn't really love at first sight until you've been with the person long enough for it to become love at first sight." (22%)

• "Giving in to cravings of the mind that ultimately hurt the body is like a weak parent giving in to her child... Caring for your body is no different from caring for a child. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it sucks, sometimes you just want to give in, but if you do, you'll pay for the consequences eighteen years down the road." (31%)

• "...the things lurking around inside the mind can be just as dangerous as tangible threats." (44%)

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5. Girls with Sharp Sticks

• "I know girls these days like to think their appearance doesn't matter," he lectured us. "Pajamas in a movie theater, messy hair at the grocery store." He scrunched up his nose as if he found these types of girls particularly distasteful. "But you will take pride in your appearance at all times. No exceptions. And why is that?" "Because beauty is our greatest asset." (42)

• "Too much thinking is bad for your looks..." (82)

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6. Debt of Bones

• "...her mother told her that helping was its own reward and you should not expect gratitude for it. She said that if you went through life expecting gratitude for the help you provided, you might end up leading a miserable life." (38"

• "We reap a reward merely in the act of helping others. We never know how, or if, that reward will come back to us. Helping is the reward; none other is needed not better." (158)

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8. The Power of One

• "In the matter of white man's punishment, the black people already understand that the body can be broken by a sjambok but never the spirit. We are the earth, that is why we are the colour of earth. In the end it is the earth who will win, every African knows this." (2%)

• "...the beginning of the power of one, where I would learn that in each of us there is a flame that must never be allowed to fo out. That as long as it burns within us, we cannot be destroyed." (3%)

• "One thing is certain in life. Just when things are going well, soon after they are certain to go wrong." (7%)

• "I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end." (8%)

• "...the person on the outside was only a shell, a presence to be seen and provoked. Inside was the real me..." (8%)

• "All children are flotsam driven by the ebb and flow of adult lives." (9%)

• "You've got to be quick on your feet in this world if you want to survive. Though, once you know the rules, it is not too hard to play the game." (10%)

• "Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of out lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Loves have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark." (11%)

• "It's good to be a little frightened. It's good to respect your opponent. It keeps you sharp. In the fight game, the head rules the heart. But in the end the heart is the boss." (13%)

• "Never forget, Peekay, sometimes, very occasionally, you do your best boxing with your mouth." (16%)

• "I had learned the most important rule in winning... keep thinking." (18%)

• "Remember always, first with the head and then with the heart. Without both, I'm telling you, plans are useless! ...First with the head and then with the heart, that's how a man stays ahead from the start." (19%)

• "...when you're small and on your own, you've got to gather all the information you can, as fast as you can. Good camouflage depends on this." (19%)

• "...concentrate on love, there is already too much hate in this land of ours. This country has been starved of love too long." (21%)

• "Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it." (21%)

• "...when you stood out in the crowd, trouble was sure to follow." (21%)

• "Sadness has a season and will pass... But it isn't the season for sadness yet." (21%)

• "...listening is a good camouflage. I soon discovered that it is also an art. You learn not simply to listen to what people say. It's what people don't say that is important. If you listen hard enough you can hear the most amazing things going on behind the speaker's voice." (22%)

• "When pressed by my mother to have a second helping, my granpa used to say: 'A cow has eight stomachs but I, alas, have one. A cow must keep on chewing but I, my dear, and done.'" (22%)

• "Country people know the sweat that goes into an ear of corn, a pail of milk, a churn of butter, bread warm from the oven and the eggs and bacon which sizzle in the breakfast frying pan. Food is hard earned and requires the proper degree of respect." (24%)

• "Life is all beginnings and ends. Nothing stays the same." (25%)

• "No matter what has happened bad, today I'm finished from being sad. Absoloodle!" (27%)

• "...always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty metres through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky... The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking; most people you encounter will be vines, when you are a young plant they are very dangerous." (29%)

• "Your brain, Peekay, has two functions; it is a place for original thought, but also it is a reference library, use it to tell you where to look and then you will have for yourself all the brains that have ever been." (29%)

• "Doc also taught me Latin roots so I was no longer forced to resort to memory alone and the botanical names of plants began to make sense to me." (30%)

• "...the greatest camouflage of all is consistency. If you do something often enough and at the same time in the same way, you become invisible. One of the shadows." (40%)

• "In music you must first do the exercises, always first the exercises. If you do the exercises goot then you have the foundations. You cannot build a good musician on a bad foundation." (40%)

• "More fights are lost by underestimating your opponent than by any other way. Always remember, small baas, surprise is everything." (42%)

• "Doc was a perfectionist and it gave him great pain not to meet the standards he demanded for himself." (46%)

• "...in this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for a man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation... The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery." (51%)

• "The photograph captured the exact moment when I understood with conviction that racism is a primary force of evil designed to destroy good men." (51%)

• "'Cleverness is a false presumption', Doc had explained. 'it is like being a natural skater, you are so busy doing tricks to impress that you do not see where the thin ice is and before you know it, poof! You are in deep, ice-cold water frozen like a dead herring. Intelligence is a harder gift, for this you must work, you must practice it, challenge it and maybe towards the end of your life you will master it. Cleverness is the shadow whereas intelligence is the substance.'" (52%)

• "From the moment Captain Smit stepped into the ring he had remained silent, and I could sense this was beginning to unnerve Borman." (59%)

• "Sometimes, when there is enough hate, this thinking can kill. The people will think some person to death. Such a death is always long and hard, because the thinking takes place over a long time. It is the hate; when it boils up there is no stopping it, the person will die because there is no muti you can take to stop this hating thing." (61%)

• "...above all things I had been taught to read for pleasure and for meaning..." (61%)

• "In teaching me independence of thought they had given me the greatest gift an adult can give to a child, besides love, and they had given me that also." (61%)

• "...my theory is that to beat any system you have to know it intimately. Rebellion is senseless and being pointedly different only leads to persecution, the only way to control any system is from inside it..." (64%)

• "Every system tends to be mutually exclusive, they're all about keeping someone or something out, by keeping the Jews out of the Nazi party Hitler was acting typically. No system wants to be undermined or abused and therefore it is constantly on guard to exclude those who would destroy it." (64%)

• "For me money is like boxing is for you, it's my way of getting even with the world. For a rich Jew money is a weapon, unless I know how to make it on my own I will be defenseless." (64%)

• "When men can be made to hope, then they can be made to win." (65%)

• "...first the facts and then the trust" (65%)

• "As is so often the case with a legend, every incident has two possible interpretations, the plausible and the one which is moulded to suit the making of the myth. Man is a romantic at heart and will always put aside dull, plodding reason for the excitement of an enigma. As Doc had pointed out, mystery, not logic, is what gives us hope and keeps us believing in a force greater than our own insignificance." (67%)

• "I had learned early silence is better than sycophancy, that silence breeds guilt in other people. That is fun to persecute a pig because it squeals, no fun at all to beat an animal which does not cry out." (67%)

• "The power of one was the courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth and not to be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power, whatever the cost." (69%)

• "...in my experience the glittering prizes in life come more to those who persevere despite setback and disappointment than they do to the exceptionally gifted who, with the confidence of the talents bestowed upon them, often pursue the tasks leading to success with less determination." (72%)

• "...good conversational debate was an end in itself and talking for the love of conversation is what makes us human." (74%)

• "Winners make their own luck but winners are also lucky." (77%)

• "The power of one is above all things the power to believe in yourself, often well beyond any latent ability you may have previously demonstrated. The mind is the athlete; the body is simply the means it uses to run faster or longer, jump higher, shoot straighter, kick better, swim harder, hit further or box better. Hoppie's dictum to me: 'First with the head and then with heart' was more than simply mixing brains with guts. It meant thinking well beyond the powers of normal concentration and then daring your courage to follow your thoughts." (81%)

• "I told him of my fear of losing control of my destiny, how, because I had camouflaged myself so well, I seemed now to be shaped and directed too much by the needs of others. How the power of one within me was being dissipated even though their purposes for me were not corrupt or ill-intentioned. On the contrary, their deeds came swaddled in the innocence of love. I was becoming powerless as those around me plundered my spirit with the gift of themselves." (90%)

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9. The Song of Achilles

• "He was utterly still, the type of quiet that I had thought could not belong to humans..." (32)

• "He said what he meant; he was puzzled if you did not. Some people might have mistaken this for simplicity. But is it not a sort of genius to cut always to the heart?" (44)

• "For who can be ashamed to lose to such beauty?" (49)

• "These unions were not always rape: sometimes there was mutual satisfaction and even affection. At least that is what the men who spoke of them believed." (59)

• "I would be horrified to find Chiron upset with me. Disapproval had always burrowed deep in me; I could not shake it off..." (104)

• "You make it sound as if I have abandoned my honor... Is that what you spin?Are you Agamemnon's spider, catching flies with that tale?" (307)

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10. The Silent Patient

• "Once you name something, it stops you seeing the whole of it, or why it matters. You focus on the word, which is just the tiniest part, really, the tip of an iceberg." (1)

• "We are drawn to this profession because we are damaged - we study psychology to heal ourselves." (14)

• "She used to say we are made up of different parts, some good, some bad, and that a healthy mind can tolerate this ambivalence and juggle both good and bad at the same time. Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration - we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves." (35)

• "I suppose what scares me is giving in to the unknown. I like to know where I'm going. That's why I always make so many sketches - trying to control the outcome - no wonder nothing comes to life - because I'm not really responding to what's going on in front of me. I need to open my eyes and look - and be aware of life as it is happening, and not simply how I want it to be." (57)

• "There's so much pain everywhere, and we just close out eyes to it. The truth is we're all scared. We're terrified of each other." (59)

• "Choosing a lover is a lot like choosing a therapist. We need to ask ourselves, is this someone who will be honest with me, listen to criticism, admit making mistakes, and not promise the impossible?" (100)

• "About how we often mistake love for fireworks... But really love is very quiet, very still. It's boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm - and constant." (101)

 

11. The One

• "If us lasses all got our heads together, rewrote the girl code and agreed to stop letting ourselves be treated like crap, then boys would have no choice but to up their game." (39)