I was like many another who starts an intrigue timidly. Once into it, I had to go on, and therefore I had to harden my sensibilities.

Now I had lived long enough and had heard enough from urchins my age and from other slaves, to distrust the person who calls himself merciful, or just, or kindly. Usually these are the most cruel, niggardly and selfish people, and slaves learn to fear the master who prefaces his remarks with tributes to his own virtues.

The eye is complicated. It mixes the colors [it sees] for you ... The painter must unmix them and lay them on again shade by shade, and then the eye of the beholder takes over and mixes them again.

Reading has always been in the chief joy, a never-ending topic of conversation, and often a lifesaver, in my family.