Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

When we have once known Rome, and left her […], we are astonished by the discovery, by-and-by, that our heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more ultimately our home, than even the spot where we were born.

If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances.

Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.