“No, he hadn't known anything about children, but now he'd learned something: a child's mind is open to everything.”

“Life had taught him about something far more complicated than justice. Its name was balance.”

“We thought we knew everything about him. But that's not how life is. When all's said and done, we can never truly know one another.”

“Even terror needs a yardstick, and surely the yardstick for the unknown is the known?”

“As he passed through the dining room, he stopped and took a white daisy from the bouqet his housekeeper had placed in the middle of the table..and put the daisy in the buttonhole of his summer jacket. Then he opened the front door and walked down the steps to Prinsegade, filled with the blind triumph that people sometimes experience when they've conquered their own better judgment.”

“That's how it is, he told himself. If you dread something enough, even your worst fears coming true brings comfort.”

“When it came to choosing between education and religion, Albert said, he'd choose education every time. The school represented young people and the future - and the church didn't. If the school in Vestergade was bigger than the church, so much the better. Any town that believed in the future should take note.”