“Granted that I know little of my real self, still, I am the best evidence for myself. And though, when I have quitted this world, it will matter nothing to me what people say of me, up to the moment of death we should strive to leave behind us something which can either Comfort, Amuse, Instruct, or Benefit the living; and though I cannot do either, execpt in a small degree, even that little should be given.”

“Regret doesn't make sense to me. I have none. Because I realize that what I do at any given moment, is my decision to make, already accepting either benefit or consequence of that action. So, regret is a useless word, and knowledge is the result.”

“But I must go on," said the Lady Amalthea, "for it is never finished. Even when I wake, I cannot tell what is real, and what I am dreaming as I move and speak and eat my dinner. I remember what cannot have happened, and forget something that is happening to me know. People look at me as though I should know them, and I do know them in the dream, and always the fire draws me nearer, though I am awake—”

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”

“I have walked through many lives,some of them my own,and I am not who I was,though some principle of beingabides, from which I strugglenot to stray.”

“The LayersI have walked through many lives,some of them my own,and I am not who I was,though some principle of beingabides, from which I strugglenot to stray.When I look behind,as I am compelled to lookbefore I can gather strengthto proceed on my journey,I see the milestones dwindlingtoward the horizonand the slow fires trailingfrom the abandoned camp-sites,over which scavenger angelswheel on heavy wings.Oh, I have made myself a tribeout of my true affections,and my tribe is scattered!How shall the heart be reconciledto its feast of losses?In a rising windthe manic dust of my friends,those who fell along the way,bitterly stings my face.Yet I turn, I turn,exulting somewhat,with my will intact to gowherever I need to go,and every stone on the roadprecious to me.In my darkest night,when the moon was coveredand I roamed through wreckage,a nimbus-clouded voicedirected me:“Live in the layers,not on the litter.”Though I lack the artto decipher it,no doubt the next chapterin my book of transformationsis already written.I am not done with my changes.”

“I have, however, to live in an age of Faith — the sort of thing I used to hear praised and recommended when I was a boy. It is damned unpleasant, really. It is bloody in every sense of the word. And I have to keep my end up in it. Where do I start?With personal relationships. Here is something comparatively solid in a world full of violence and cruelty. Not absolutely solid... We don’t know what other people are like. How then can we put any trust in personal relationships, or cling to them in the gathering political storm? In theory we can’t. But in practice we can and do. Though A is unchangeably A or B unchangeably B, there can still be love and loyalty between the two. For the purpose of loving one has to assume that the personality is solid, and the “self” is an entity, and to ignore all contrary evidence. And since to ignore evidence is one of the characteristics of faith, I certainly can proclaim that I believe in personal relationships.”