“He would have lived countless times over the life of the individual, of the family, tribe and people, and he would possess the living sense of the rhythm of growth, flowering and decay.”

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

“Many would have disliked to live, if possessed of the peculiar features of Arthur Jermyn, but he had been a poet and a scholar and had not minded.”

“Now it turns out that a few broadsheet film critics in Britain do indeed belong to a category of people who would have resisted Hitler when he came to power. So the great shame is, clearly film critics should have been running Austria at the time, because Hitler would have represented no problem to them at all. [The Guardian's] Peter Bradshaw would have known exactly what to do, and he would not have been remotely fallible to any Nazi who threatened his life. No, he would have died in heroic acts of individual resistance. So it's a privilege to live among people who enjoy such moral certainty.”

“Needs multiply as they are met. Woe to the man who would live a disentangled life. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!”

“Spiritual fathers have influence over the lives of individuals. Patriarchs have influence over families. The devil has been able to destroy families because there is a lack of spiritual fathers and patriarchs.”