Everything about our sessions pleased me: the smallness of the room; the noise of the janitor’s broom hitting the edge of the long hallway outside the door; the green of the sun, lighting the wall; and the old woman’s face blurred white with a beard.

—Richard Rodriquez, Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez

This is the large iceberg; while the small and distant islands, floating on the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little floating fairy isles of sapphire.

—Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before The Mast

The war that will end all war.

—H.G. Wells, referring to World War I

Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd – seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind.

—George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant”

In 1963, artist Roy Lichtenstein painted a painting titled “Whaam!”

. . . the sunset was beautiful, resembling ships of silver clouds with rosy sails that crossed the lilac sea of sky in the west.

—Zane Grey, “Steelhead on the Russian”

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

—Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism