“Most men live like raisins in a cake of custom.”

“Customs tell a man who he is, where he belongs, what he must do. Better illogical customs than none; men cannot live together without them.”

“A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.”

“But if you like, you can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and The Count of Monte Cristo, anyone can live to a hundred.”

“Raisins again. I like raisins, but I have a habit of losing one or two on the floor every time I eat them. I always find them later and think they are: a) a mouse turd or b) a cockroach. Then I figure out it's a raisin and sigh with relief. This pretty much happens every time I find a lost raisin.”

“I myself, however, could never resist the temptation to read raisin paste for wine in the story of the Miracle of Cana. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made raisin paste ... he said unto the bridegroom, 'Every man doth at the beginning doth set forth good raisin paste, and when men have well drunk [eaten? the text is no doubt corrupt], then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good raisin paste until now.”