“The angrier you were, the less likely you were to think clearly.”

“For a moment David was tempted to think that perhaps there were no good people at all outside concentration camps, but then he reminded himself of the sailor and Angelo and the English people who might have been ignorant but were certainly not bad.”

“Americans were most likely good people...the only thing wrong with them, David thought, was that they spoke English very badly.”

“Violence and cruelty were just a stupid person's way of making himself felt, because it was easier to use your hands to strike a blow then to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to a problem.”

“Yes, he had made a good choice after all when he had chosen the God of the green pasture and the still waters! He was very powerful, and the fact that He expected you to think for yourself and do something in return for His help did not matter, as long as you could work things out.”

“Johannes had once said that violence and cruelty were just a stupid person's way of making himself felt, because it was easer to use your hands to strike a blow than to use your brain to find a logical and just solution to the problem.”

“And his eyes frighten me, too. They're the eyes of an old man, an old man who's seen so much in life that he no longer cares to go on living. They're not even desperate... just quiet and expectant, and very, very lonely, as if he were quite alone of his own free choice.”