“[W]e are almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite other.”

“Learning, and especially unlearning, can take place only in the absence of defensiveness.... [W]e can drop our defenses only when we love and are loved.”

“[W]e are not merely tempered and schooled by failure but compelled, in however subtle a fashion, to become something other than we were.”

“Almost all traditions point a big finger in the same direction, no matter what our background, one must only look up and you will see it hanging over you, pointing you somewhere, and if that place terrifies you, than you know you are on the right path.”

“The mind boggles, in other words, but the brain toggles- sometimes quite rapidly, from one task to the next.”

“Through our reading we can travel to other times and other places, into other peoples minds and hearts and souls: it is a transcendent experience.”