“I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?" She studied him, her eyes grave. "Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”

“Why, when I have won her, do I continue to woo her? Because, though she belongs to me, she is not and never will be mine.”

“Don’t you see?” I said. “He could change every detail, but he couldn’t change her.” “But why?” His obtuseness frustrated me. “Because he was in love with her!” I said. “Because, to him, she was the only thing that was real.”

“I regret everything because it has just finished, and already when I was twelve, I lamented the time that had gone by. Even in the best of spirits, it's always been as though I wrestle with the present in a vain effort to stop its becoming the past.”

“They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.”

“Will looked as if she had slpped him. "I didn't do it so you'd be grateful!"
"Then what?" Her voice rose. "You did it because it's your mandate? Because the law says-"
"I did it because I love you!”

“but she realized that she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to understand her, if only because she had strange sense that he was the kind of man she could fall in love with, even if she didn't want to.”

“The virtues chose Modesty to be their queen.
"I did not know that I was a virtue," she said. "Why did you not choose Innocence?"
"Because of her ignorance," they replied. "She knows nothing but that she is a virtue."”

“I feel there is honour and dignity in being sent to prison because the law says, even though I know I did what I had to do then.”

“When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood.”