“Children are natural practitioners of the Queer and the Questing, for childhood is nothing but a quest through a queer country. Of course, they often have a good deal of trouble with the Quiet.”

“He had been through a good deal in the course of the Great Quest — he had seen beautiful things and horrible things — but up until now he had not known that one and the same creature can be both, that beauty can be terrifying.”

“In the conflict between Israelis and Arabs you have wounded civilizations — the Arabs have been wounded in their dealings with the West, and an insecure Jewish people have gone through terrible disasters and traumas. There is no end to the Jewish quest for security, and there is no end for the Arab quest for redress and dignity. It is very difficult to reconcile the two.”

“There's nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.”

“It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.”

“You can have a failed quest, but you can't have an achieved quest and no reward.”