#innocence

He bent and laid his lips on her hands, which were cold and lifeless. She drew them away, and he turned to the door, found his coat and hat under the faint gas-light of the hall, and plunged out into the winter night bursting with the belated eloquence of the inarticulate. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#age

Evil always wins through the strength of its splendid dupes; and there has in all ages been a disastrous alliance between abnormal innocence and abnormal sin. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#innocence #useful-idiots #age

He had her in his arms, her face like a wet flower at his lips, and all their vain terrors shriveling up like ghosts at sunrise. ↗

— Edith Wharton

#in-his-arms #the-age-of-innocence #age

Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again. ↗

— Philip Larkin

#expectation #innocence #sadness #war #change

When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me, my pale face, the way the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire. I saw how much that cruel necklace became me. And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption that took my breath away. ↗

— Angela Carter

#lust #life

The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#dreaming #innocence #naivete #dreams

I just wanted things to be simple. I didn't understand why things had to be so complicated for all the grown ups. And I decided that if growing up meant things got confusing, then I would stay little forever. I would stay simple. But unfortunately everything around me did its best not to be. The world liked to be complex. It liked to twist, to distort. To bleed you dry of whatever feeling you could muster while still letting you hold on to your sanity so that you could experience heartache at its prime. I didn't know how cold the world could be when I was eleven. If I would have known...maybe I would have packed a sweater. ↗

— A.L. Collins

#innocence #youth #experience

I was very lighthearted. This often the way when the abandonment of personal responsibility is enforced: neither wronged innocence or just guilt can seriously impair the sensation of freedom one has. ↗

— Anthony Burgess

#persecution #freedom

Those who will never be fooled can never be delighted, because without self-forgetfulness there can be no delight, and this is a great and grievous loss. ↗

— Alan Jacobs

#innocence #imagination

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him. ↗

— John Marshall

#guilt #innocence #justice #law #legality