“Fortune favors the brave," I told her. It also kills the stupid, but I decided to keep that fact to myself.”

““I can’t keep giving my will into other people hands no more, ain’t? I have to decide what I want to do for myself.” No answer. It wasn’t going to tell her.”

“It is more easy to get a favor from Fortune than to keep it.”
Fortunam citius reperias quam retineas.

“When Fortune is on our side, popular favor bears her company.”

“I also admit that some gray-haired men are stupid but that doesn’t mean I am. I know myself.”

“I have found a way to beat myself
I win by losing, something like that
I'm told that I'm stupid
So ok, I'll be stupid
If I can't register the pain
Then it's not there
I'm not so stupid after all
I'll show them”

“I am so stupid, so easily fooled. It's really almost funny. If I could lift a finger I would gladly kill myself.”

“[I] decided to force myself to cut this golden knot of ambition [to portray the nobility any longer] in order to recover my liberty. Realizing that a retirement of this sort must be made while one is rising and not falling; that one must leave Fortune while she is still favorable... I seized the occasion of a short, secret journey to throw myself at Her Highness's feet and beg, as the sole reward for so many efforts, exemption from such [diplomatic] assignments and permission to serve her in my own home. This favor I obtained with more difficulty than any other she ever granted me... Now by God's grace.... I am leading a quiet life with my wife and children and have no pretensions in the world than to live in peace.”

“But she’s your daughter!” “You think I don’t know that?” Donna Mitchell’s dark eyes, so like Allison’t own, drilled into her. “But I don’t do her any favors if I keep enabling her. I’m not going to rescue Lindsay from the consequences of her own self-destructive behavior anymore. The last time she was here, I told her if she left that was it. And she still did.”

“All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.”