Mark Helprin

“The world is a mill, and we are the grain.”

“The world is a library of which we are all the books.”

“For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone.”

“A tranquil city of good laws, fine architecture, and clean streets is like a classroom of obedient dullards, or a field of alfalfa.”

“Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.”

“If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.”

“One of the advantages of being a captain is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”

“Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city...or the first start of a new born baby's heart.”

“He was a soldier of the Great War.”

“The winter will be short, the summer long, the sky will be blue, the harvest abundant, and I will die in my bed.”

“Well-timed silence has more eloquence than speech.”

“The strength of a city is not in its walls or its warships, but in the courage of its men and women.”