"I can never pass a cat in the street without greeting it and exchanging a few words, and the cat invariably replies."

Previous Quote

There is a line that I always loved from Lucretius. He said, "The sublime is the art of exchanging easier for more difficult pleasures." The presumption of that formulation is that the more difficult pleasures are actually better than the easier pleasures. That is why one makes the exchange.

— Andrew Solomon