“There’s a gate?” I ask, confused. “Why do we always climb the fence?” He shoots me a sly grin. “You were in a dress the two times we’ve been here. Where’s the fun in walking through a gate?”

“That's why there are ten gates to pass through before you reach the garden. If life were easy there would be one gate. There would be no gates at all.”

“The Gates of Heaven and the Gates of Hell are the same gates. It just depends which side you're standing on when you walk through.”

“I had grown up in a house with a fence around it, and in this fence was a white smooth wooden gate, two holes bored round and low together so the dog could see through. One night, the moon high, late for me home from the school dance, I remember that I stopped, hand on the gate, and spoke so quietly to myself and to the woman that I would love that not even the dog could have heard.I don’t know where you are, but you’re living right now, somewhere on this earth. And one day you and I are going to touch this gate where I’m touching it now. Your hand will touch this very wood, here! Then we’ll walk through and we’ll be full of a future and of a past and we’ll be to each other like no one else has ever been. We can’t meet now, I don’t know why. But some day our questions will be answers and we’ll be caught in something so bright...and every step I take is one step closer on a bridge we must cross to meet.”

“There’s nothing here,” Carter said.“What do you want?” I asked. “We’ve got wax, some toilet papyrus, an ugly statue.”

“Happiness is a choice you make when you allow faith through the entry gate and fear through the exit gate.”