This Very Rome That We

I Do Not Portray The Thing In Itself. I Portray The Passage; Not A Passing From One Age To Another, Or, As The People Put It, From Seven Years To Seven Years, But From Day To Day, From Minute To Minute.

We Only Labor To Stuff The Memory, And Leave The Conscience And The Understanding Unfurnished And Void.

It Is Probable That The Principal Credit Of Miracles, Visions, Enchantments, And Such Extraordinary Occurrences Comes From The Power Of Imagination, Acting Principally Upon The Minds Of The Common People, Which Are Softer.

Nothing Fixes A Thing So Intensely In The Memory As The Wish To Forget It.

I Want To Be Seen Here In My Simple, Natural, Ordinary Fashion, Without Straining Or Artifice; For It Is Myself That I Portray... I Am Myself The Matter Of My Book.