Alexandra Strede

“The Yaksha asked, 'What enemy is invincible? What constitutes an incurable disease for man? What sort of a man is called honest and what dishonest?' Yudhishthira answered, 'Anger is an invincible enemy. Covetousness constitutes an incurable disease. He is honest that desires the weal of all creatures, and he is dishonest who is unmerciful.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Mahābhārata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

“She was a nightmare of beauty and ferocity, with a perfection of feature and line not found on Earth. Ruxandra was stunned out of fear for a moment. That such a creature could exist—that the nuns’ embroidered tales of demons, were not only true but were a bare and pathetic next to the real thing. This demon. This queen.”
― John Patrick Kennedy, Princess Dracula

“Maneck studied beggermaster's excessive chatter, his attempt to hide his heartache. Why did human do that to their feelings? Whether it was anger or love or sadness, they always tried to put something else forward in its place. And then there were those who pretended their emotions were bigger and grander than anyone else's. A little annoyance they acted like gigantic rage; where a smile or chuckle will do, they laughed hysterically. Either way, it was dishonest.”
― Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance

“Even people whose lives have been made various by learning sometimes find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on their faith in the Invisible - nay, on the sense that their past joys and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their history, and share none of their ideas - where their mother earth shows another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their old faith and love have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of exile in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no memories.”
― George Eliot, Silas Marner