“By understanding the nuances of the world around you and how to survive the temptations, you can rule anything. Even yourself”

“How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you're hungry. If you can't think of anything else.”

“There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.”

“Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.”

“Men aren't stupid, and you don't need a complicated set of rules to find a good one who loves you. Here's the only rule you need: if a man loves you, he will do anything he can to keep you around. Anything.”

“Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay”

“All the people around Hester hate her and despise her and think she's a total freak. The kid's beyond human law and human consideration. How do you feel about yourself when every human being you hear and see and smell every day of your being thinks you're worse than garbage? Your conception of who you are has always, at least partially, depended on how the people around you behaved towards you… You don't know. How can you know anything? How can you know anything? You begin to go crazy.”

“So it's not about what you do. It can't be, can it? It has to be about how you are, how you love, how you treat yourself and those around you, and that's where I get eaten up.”

“Live never to be ashamed if anything you say or do is published around the world, even if what is said is not true.”

“That becomes the revolution, to be idealistic enough that you think you can change the world, and what you find is you can't change anything but yourself.”