He was an American character, one typical of men of his generation, men who embraced the notion of freedom and individualism and the open road without always knowing its price, and whose enthusiasms could as...

Innocence is a kind of insanity

Innocence is an infinitely fragile thing and thought can sometimes injure, even destroy it. – Pg. 254

Invadiu-me um medo estranho. Não queria voltar à solidão do meu quarto. Caminhei pelas ruas de Berlim até à avenida de Kurfürstendamm que, de tão iluminada, era um mundo por si. Nada tinha a ver...

He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.

We all wear masksto veil the truth.Truth is nakedness.Truth is fear.Truth is the gardener making you sit on his lapasking you tolight his cigarette.Truth is father— with a limp cigarette on his lips —telling you...

I’ve got a pretty good idea what children are, and we’re not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares.

There are many more layers to innocence than one might ever imagine, and we are ever unaware of them until each barrier is breached.

Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affairs, so the Scholars, for their part, would have been unable to see the rich seething stew of...

An innocent mind is a rarity. Society corrupts us all, even if only a little.

a fall from great innocence hurts the most to knowthat you are nowtainted

There are innumerable ways to murder a person, but the most subtle and pernicious of these is to mutilate the soul of the innocent by denying or downgrading their uniqueness and their beauty.

As we grow we seem to go further and further away from that child which rests within. But there was no choice and so we wander beyond innocence, beyond the touch of insanity and groom...

Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin.

The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.

I think there’s an innocence to me.

We’ll never feel safe again, and so it’s bye-bye innocence. It’s been nice knowing you, but you’re gone now.

To an atheist all writings tend to atheism: he corrupts the most innocent matter with his own venom.

Innocence could be lost more than once after all.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.

The art of living. Isn’t that a funny expression?

Then Deborah stood at the wicket gate, the boundary, and there was a woman with outstretched hand, demanding tickets.”Pass through,” she said when Deborah reached her. “We saw you coming.” The wicket gate became a...

The thing about stereotyping is it’s usually just throwing rocks into a crowd hoping to hit somebody who deserves it.

That’s the beautiful thing about innocence; even monsters have a pocketful of childhood memories with which to seek comfort with.

I had the same sensation as when we watch someone sleep. When asleep we all become children again. Perhaps because in the state of slumber we can do no wrong and are unconscious of life,...

Isn’t life,’ she stammered, ‘isn’t life–‘ But what life was she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood.’Isn’t it, darling?’ said Laurie.

You know what my father said about innocent clients? … He said the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it’ll...

He himself, he realized, had always been most abominably frightened, even at the height of his divine power, a frail god upon a rickety throne, afraid of opening letters, of making decisions, afraid of the...

Here, by the grace of God and an inside straight, we have a personality untouched by the psychotic taboos of our tribe – and you want to turn him into a carbon copy of every...

Why I Am HappyNow has come, an easy time. I let it roll. There is a lake somewhere so blue and far nobody owns it. A wind comes by and a willow listens gracefully. I...

The more you face the truth, the angrier you will probably become. You have a right to be angry about being sexually abused. You have a right to be angry with the perpetrator, regardless of...

In an age of iPhones and Playstations, it’s great to see that somebody’s still rocking the bus-on-a-string.

That was my first instinct — to protect him. It never occurred to me that there was a greater need to protect myself. Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much...

Sometimes I ask God what I did to deserve her love. I maintain my innocence, and of all the forms of God’s wrath from plagues, pestilence, and famine, her love is by far the cruelest.

We’re children. We’re supposed to be childish.

No matter how hard you try to be a good person, to make choices that will lead to success, nothing is promised. Even the good and the innocent are damned from time to time.

We violate the innocence of things in the name of rationality so we can wander about, uninterrupted, in our search for passion and sentiment.

We speak of love when we destroy nature.It sounds like innocence of cruel arrogance.

You are an intriguing combination, half child, half seductress, half angel.”I laughed sort and bitterly. “That’s what all men like to think about women. Little girls they have to take care of–when I know for...

There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things...

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!The world forgetting, by the world forgot.Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted. Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity to define your own reality. You can say: This did happen...

There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

Jesse Jackson, when I met him, he had an innocence about him which is still very much a part of him today.

Dear, that is not St. Vincent’s fantasy, it’s his reality. And you’re probably the first sweet, decent girl he’s ever had anything to do with.

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

But I think parents aren’t teachers anymore. Parents — or a whole lot of us, at least — lead by mouth instead of by example. It seems to me that if a child’s hero is...

I relinquished myself to existence pure and simple, thinking absolutely nothing—as if my mind were merely an echo chamber for the music, as if it contained only ether or at most a vaguely pleasant odor...

The Old Woman asked, “Here you are, dear Youth, you are looking at the Garden and do not know that it is an evil Garden. Here you are waiting for the Beautiful Woman and do...