Nathaniel Hawthorne

“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is impalpable,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.”

“There is a singular and mysterious charm in fire.”

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”

“Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important in some respect whether he chooses to be so or not.”

“Moonlight is sculpture.”

“Caresses, expressions of tenderness, are the proofs of love. But they are more than this. They are the very food of love.”

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

“Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.”

“The human heart is a dark forest.”

“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.”

“A story-writer is a man who has a fixed idea, and who is determined to tell it to the world. It is a great happiness to have such a fixed idea.”