[My subjects] look lost because that is how I see life. I think we are all a bit lost, lost in a world we can't understand.
The mercantile business did not suit me
How could I make a little book, when I have seen enough to make a dozen large books?
But the moment a bird was dead, no matter how beautiful it had been in life, the pleasure of possession became blunted for me.
. . . nature indifferently copied is far superior to the best idealities.
But hopes are shy birds flying at a great distance, seldom reached by the best of guns.
There is the morass, wherein you plunge up to your knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery, whereby one treads down the forests of Labrador; and the unexpected bunting or sylvia which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the ground creeping plant.
All our salvation consists in the manifestation of the nature, life and spirit of Jesus Christ in our inward new man. This alone is Christian redemption, this alone delivers from the guilt and power of sin, this alone redeems and renews.
In thy discourse, if thou desire to please; All such is courteous, useful, new, or wittie: Usefulness comes by labour, wit byease; Courtesie grows in court; news in the citie.
You remember all those phrases about how these people - Asians - dont value human life like we do. Well if you spend any time around them, you discover that they love their children just as much as we love ours. That is certainly true of the Vietnamese.
Those meaningless and unanswerable questions the minds keep returning to, like a tongue exploring a broken tooth.