“Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.”

“Happy will be the men who, having the power and the love and the benevolent forecast to [create a park], will do it. They will not be forgotten. The trees and their lovers will sing their praises, and generations yet unborn will rise up and call them blessed.”

“Loving someone who doesn't love me back is like loving the wind, which is felt but cannot be seen. The lover does not love the feeling of getting love in return, but sacrifices himself for his happiness.”

“Could it be that to truly love a thing is not to desire it, but to desire happiness for it?”

“Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.”

“But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the happiness of being truly loved.”

“There's no point in doing something if it does not make you truly happy.”

“Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.”

“He is not a lover who does not love forever.”

“I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.”