Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

Teachers who educated children deserved more honour than parents who merely gave them birth; for bare life is furnished by the one, the other ensures a good life.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

My eyes are different sizes, my nose is too broad at the bridge and squishes up when I laugh, and my lips are sorta funny when I smile.

The true object of moral and political disquisition is pleasure or happiness.

My books are love stories at core, really. But I am interested in manifestations of love beyond the traditional romantic notion. In fact, I seem not particularly inclined to write romantic love as a narrative motive or as an easy source of happiness for my characters.

I never thought it was fair for an 8-year-old child not to be able to afford shoes, or to wander the streets having to beg for money. To know that child's joy would end soon, when they realised there was no future.