“Kindness and intelligence are the preoccupations of age. Being cruel and thoughtless is far more fascinating when you’re twenty.”

“Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel.”

“You can find out far more about a writer from his poems or fiction.. because in his stories or poems, his preoccupations, obsessions, moral standards, the quality of his intelligence, his loves, hates, aspirations, belief and fears.. insist on expression.”

“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

“I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses.”

“What kind of thoughtless creep would burn a book?”

“Organized mayhem,” Nick commented, “seems to be the chief preoccupation of intelligent species everywhere.”

“Jace knew he was being cruel, and he barely cared. Hurting people he loved was almost as good as hurting himself when he was in this kind of mood.”

“And fourteen—fourteen is such a fearful age, when you find out so fast what you’re capable of being, but also what a toll the world expects.”

“Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.”