“Heed my words, daughter, if you ever mean to be happy: Never give yourself to a man.”

“It was a child's awareness, never spoken or even fully acknowledged, but deeply felt.”

“The bud of a rose grows in darkness. It knows nothing of the sun, yet it pushes at the darkness that confines it until at last the walls give way and the rose bursts forth, spreading its petals into the light. I love him.”

“What is life? The joy of the blessed, the sorrow of the sad, and a search for death. And what is death? An inevitable happening, an uncertain pilgrimage, the tears of the living, the thief of man.”

“As for will, woman should be considered superior to man for Eve ate of the apple for love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him.”

“Why the woman is better...though she was created second she was made from Adam's side whole Adam was made from common clay. Woman should be preferred to man because Eve was created inside Paradise, but Adam was created outside. As for will, woman should be considered superior to man-for Eve ate of the apple for the love of knowledge and learning, but Adam ate of it merely because she asked him.”

“She had discovered that her love of knowing was not unnatural or sinful but the direct consequence of a God-given ability to reason.”