Eleanor Catton: The Luminaries

A woman fallen has no future; a man risen has no past.

For although a man is judged by his actions, by what he has said and done, a man judges himself by what he is willing to do, by what he might have said, or might have done—a judgment that is necessarily hampered, not only by the scope and limits of his imagination, but by the ever-changing measure of his doubt and self-esteem.

Never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person's point of view.

It is a feature of human nature to give what we most wish to receive.

We spend our entire lives thinking about death. Without that project to divert us, I expect we would all be dreadfully bored. We would have nothing to evade, and nothing to forestall, and nothing to wonder about. Time would have no consequence.

I have heard that in the New Zealand native tradition, the soul, when it dies, becomes a star.

Money is a burden, a burden most keenly felt by the poor.