“There was a satisfaction in being right and a terror in finding so much evidence that the world didn't work the way you or most other people thought it did.”

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. ”

“The problem, of course, was that people did not seem to understand the difference between right and wrong. They needed to be reminded about this, because if you left it to them to work out for themselves, they would never bother. They would just find out what was best for them, and then they would call that the right thing. That's how most people thought.”

“You wouldn't worry so much about what other people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.”

“I like looking for myself in the whitest of pages. I like finding evidence of myself there, after being told my footprints did not exist on that sand. I think the work of the great white writers is important, but I think it's most important when it's negotiating me and my people, because I am as arrogant and selfish a reader as any other.”

“To kiss then was the most natural thing in the world. To explore, to taste, to find out. Katie did find out. When they parted from each other, the world was that much more of a beautiful thing.”