Vorbele nu-s bune la nimic; vorbele nu se potrivesc nici chiar cu ceea ce încearcă ele să zică. Maternitatea a fost inventată de cineva căruia îi trebuia un cuvânt pentru asta. Frica a fost inventată de cineva căruia nu i-a fost niciodată frică; mândria, de cel care nu a avut niciodată mândrie. Trebuie ca noi să ne folosim unul de altul cu ajutorul cuvintelor, ca păienjenii atârnați cu gura de-o grindă, legănându-se și răsucindu-se și niciodată atingând pământul.
He pulls down one of my straps, slides his other hand in among the feathers, but it's no good, I lie there like a dead bird. He is not a monster, I think. I can't afford pride or aversion, there are all kinds of things that have to be discarded, under the circumstances. "Maybe I should turn the lights out," says the Commander, dismayed and no doubt disappointed. I see him for a moment before he does this. Without his uniform he looks smaller, older, like something being dried. The trouble is that I can't be, with him, any different from the way I usually am with him. Usually I'm inert. Surely there must be something here for us, other than this futility and bathos.
Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.