Henry Avila

“Books are doors that lead out into the street,” Patricia would tell her. “You learn from them, educate yourself, travel, dream, imagine, live other lives, multiply your own life a thousand times. Where can you get more for your money, Mexicanita? And they also keep all sorts of bad things at bay: ghosts, loneliness, shit like that.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Queen of the South

“anything which we are taught by allegory or emblem affects and pleases us more, and is more highly esteemed by us, than it would be if most clearly stated in plain terms.”
― Augustine of Hippo, The Complete Works of Saint Augustine: The Confessions, On Grace and Free Will, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, Expositions on the Book Of Psalms, ...

“If we love someone very much, we know that even if we give him the most valuable thing we have, we know not to expect harm from him. This is what a sacrifice is.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

“Naturally – she's an actress." He laughed wryly to himself. "Complications. Oh, yes." The doctor reflected and then said, "I always think a life without complications isn't really a life, you know. In life things go wrong, nothing stays the same and there's nothing you can do about it. Friends betray you, family is a nightmare, lovers are fickle. This is the norm, no?" He smiled to himself, as if remembering something pertinent. "What kind of a world would it be where nothing ever went wrong, where everything stayed the same, life followed a designated path – family was adorable, friends and lovers were faithful and true?" He paused. "You know, I don't think I'd like that kind of a world. We're made for complications, we human beings. Anyway, such a perfect world could never exist – at least not on this small planet.”
― William Boyd, Love Is Blind: A novel