Those who are vain have little ability to feel grateful.

— Mark Helprin

To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distinctive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints.

— Mark Helprin

We are like poor people, who have nothing but each other, and are happy.

— Mark Helprin

Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.

— Mark Helprin

...what argument is left with someone you love if she is willing to break your heart?

— Mark Helprin

When faced with something I fear, I tend to eat spaghetti.

— Mark Helprin

[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy... Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.

— Mark Helprin

Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.

— Mark Helprin

Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare preaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Christie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.

— Mark Helprin

You can't expect anyone to trust revelation if he hasn't experienced it himself. Those who haven't only know reason. And since revelation is a thing apart, and cannot be accounted for reasonably, they will never believe you. This is the great division of the world and always has been. When reason and revelation run together, why, then you have something great, a great age.

— Mark Helprin