Suddenly, fifteen minutes after the prince left, Aglaya came running down to the terrace from upstairs, and in such a hurry that she did not even wipe her eyes, which were wet with tears. She came running down because Kolya arrived and brought a hedgehog. They all started looking at the hedgehog; to their questions, Kolya explained that the hedgehog was not his, and that he was now walking with his comrade, another schoolboy, Kostya Lebedev, who had stayed outside and was embarrassed to come in because he was carrying an axe; that they had bought both the hedgehog and the axe from a peasant they had met. The peasant was selling the hedgehog and took fifty kopecks for it, and then they persuaded him to sell the axe as well, because it was an opportunity, and also a very good axe. Here Aglaya suddenly began pestering Kolya terribly to sell her the hedgehog at once, turned inside out, even called Kolya "dear." Kolya would not agree for a long time, but finally gave in and called Kostya Lebedev, who indeed came in carrying the axe and feeling very embarrassed. But here it suddenly turned out that the hedgehog did not belong to them at all, but to t third boy, Petrov, who had given them money to buy Schlosser's History from some fourth boy, who, being in need of money, was selling it at a bargain price; that they set out to buy Schlosser's History, but could not help themselves and bought the hedgehog, and therefore both the hedgehog and the axe belonged to that third boy, to whom they were now taking them in place of Schlosser's History. But Aglaya pestered them so much that they finally decided to sell her the hedgehog. As soon as Aglaya got the hedgehog, she put it into a wicker basket with Kolya's help, covered it with a napkin, and started asking Kolya to go at once and, without stopping anywhere, take the hedgehog to the prince on her behalf, with the request that he accept it as "a token of her profoundest respect." Kolya gladly agreed and promised to deliver it, but immediately began to pester her: "What was the meaning of the hedgehog and of such a present?" Aglaya replied that that was none of his business. He replied that he was sure it contained some allegory. Aglaya became angry and snapped at him that he was a little brat and nothing more. Kolya at once retorted that if it were not for his respect for the woman in her, and for his own convictions on top of it, he would immediately prove to her that he knew how to respond to such insults. It ended, however, with Kolya delightedly going all the same to deliver the hedgehog, and Kostya Lebedev running after him; Aglaya could not help herself and , seeing Kolya swinging the basket too hard, shouted behind him from the terrace: "Please, Kolya dearest, don't drop it!"—as if she had not just quarreled with him; Kolya stopped and, also as if he had not just been quarreling, shouted with great readiness: "No, I won't drop it, Aglaya Ivanova. Be completely assured!" and ran on at breakneck speed. After that Aglaya laughed terribly and ran to her room extremely pleased, and then was very cheerful all day.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

Art-making and parenthood act very efficiently as disincentives to one another, and people who say otherwise are deluded, or childless, or men.

—Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

 We sat at a table in the corner, our reflections mirrored in the black of the plate-glass windows. Henry took out a pen and began to fill out Julian's evaluation.

I looked at my own copy while I ate my sandwich. The questions were ranked from one—poor to five—excellent: Is this faculty member prompt? Well-prepared? Ready to offer help outside the classroom? Henry, without the slightest pause, had gone down the list and circled all fives. Now I saw him writing the number 19 in a blank.

"What's that for?"

"The number of classes I've taken with Julian," he said, without looking up.

"You've taken nineteen classes with Julian?"

"Well, that's tutorials and everything," he said, irritated.

For a moment there was no sound except the scratching of Henry's pen and then distant crash of dish racks in the kitchen.

"Does everybody get these, or just us?" I said.

"Just us."

"I wonder why they even bother."

"For their records, I suppose." He had turned to the last page, which was mostly blank. Please elaborate here on any additional compliments or criticisms you may have of this teacher. Extra sheets of paper may be attached if necessary.

His pen hovered over the paper. Then he folded the sheet and pushed it aside.

"What," I said, "aren't you going to write anything?"

Henry took a sip of his tea. "How," he said, "can I possibly make the Dean of Studies understand that there is a divinity in our midst?"

—Donna Tartt, The Secret History

"New morality" follows the situation ethics set forth popularly by Joseph Fletcher. Fletcher summarized his view of ethics by saying, "We must always do what love requires in the situation." This maxim, if it stood alone, would be sound. We are always responsible to do what love demands in a situation. Love is the linchpin of the law of God. The problem remains how to know what love requires in a given situation. God's law reveals what God's love requires.

When Paul speaks of the ethics of love, he says, "And live a life of love, just as Christ loved us..." (Eph. 5:2). But the apostle does not stop with an ambiguous appeal to love. In the next breath he says, "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people" (Eph. 5:3). Here the law of God defines what is consistent with love. Appeals to love are frequently used to excuse sin. The oldest ploy in the world for sexual seduction is, "If you love me, you will." Yet Paul declares, "If you love God, you won't. Ever."

—R. C. Sproul, Playing God

This love between man and dog is the heart of fox-hunting, and one of the reasons that hunting with hounds has been so often on the tip of the poet's tongue, and so often exalted in paint or marble or music. It is a refreshing love, based in realistic perceptions and mutual utility, and culminating in a common triumph. The love that people feel for their pets may be real, but it is seldom realistic. It rarely occurs to the suburban dog-lover that the ease with which his pet's affection is purchased is a sign of its moral worthlessness. Fido's wagging tail is misread as an endorsement, a sign that Fido has peered into his provider's heart and been moved by the spectacle of human kindness. The daily bowl of gravy-smeared chunks is a reward for moral insight. As for the creatures whose remnants lie in the bowl, the dog-lover has no qualms about their slaughter, so long as he does not witness it. For is it not obvious that they died to feed a moral being, a creature like you or me, whose wisdom, rationality and goodness of heart are all definitively proven by his choice of master?

No such sentiments pollute the heart of the huntsman. His hounds still live in their savage state, relieved of that constant and inachievable demand to mimic the manners of a moral being, which troubles the life of an incarcerated pet. They sleep in a pack in dog-scented kennels, hunt in a pack with their powers supremely stretched; they eat raw flesh, and not too much of it; they drink the brackish water of mud-stopped ditches; and the price of every slackness is the rough end of the tongue. Once trained to hunt they can never be subdued to a household regime, and can expect nothing when their hunting strength is gone besides a shot in the head, often administered by the very man whose love is all to them. But their time on earth is a happy one; everything they do is rooted in their nature, and even the crowning gift of human love comes in the guise of species-life: for the huntsman is leader of the pack, first among the band of canine warriors. His authority is not that mysterious, guilt-ridden thing that appears to the pet in the down-turned milky eyes of his crooning captor, but the glad imperative of the species, miraculously incarnate in human form.

—Roger Scruton, On Hunting

"Oh, just let me cry, Marilla," sobbed Anne. "The tears don't hurt me like that ache did. Stay here for a little while with me and keep your arm round me—so. I couldn't have Diana stay, she's good and kind and sweet—but it's not her sorrow—she's outside of it and she couldn't come close enough to my heart to help me. It's our sorrow—yours and mine. Oh, Marilla, what will we do without him?"

—Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

One of the conditions of happy romantic compatibility is, if not to have read the same books, to have read at least some books in common with the other person.

—Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read

Love, with very young people, is a very heartless business. We drink at that age from thirst, or to get drunk; it is only later in life that we occupy ourselves with the individuality of our wine. A young man in love is essentially enraptured by the forces within himself. You may come back to that view again, in a second adolescence. I knew a very old Russian in Paris, enormously rich, who used to keep the most charming young dancers, and who, when once asked whether he had, or needed to have, any illusions as to their feelings for him, thought the question over and said: "I do not think, if my chef succeeds in making me a good omelette, that I bother much whether he loves me or not." A young man could not have put his answer into those words, but he might say that he did not care whether his wine merchant was of his own religion or not, and imagine that he had got close to the truth of things. In middle age, though, you arrive at a deeper humility, and you come to consider it of importance that the person who sells or grows your wine shall be of the same religion as you yourself.

—Isak Dinesen, "The Old Chevalier" from Seven Gothic Tales

We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.

—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre