“A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.”

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.”

“My father says that fear is good; it's the body's alarm system, it warns us of danger. But sometimes danger can't be avoided, and then you have to forget about being afraid.”

“I learned very quickly that when you emigrate, you lose the crutches that have been your support; you must begin from zero, because the past is erased with a single stroke and no one cares where you’re from or what you did before.”

“The Daughter was weary at her spinning, and reflected aloud, "What if we really could spin coarse straw into fine, pure strands of gold?""If you could accomplish that miracle," her mother admonished, "the responsibility it would entail would tax and exhaust you — mind and body — far beyond the demands of the quotidian tasks you have been given. How blessed it is to live a human, limited life.”

“This was a matter of some small group of guerrillas in some distant caves, a primitive, fanatical, and desperate people who didn't have the resources to intimidate the United States.”

“Death may be by choclate, but I' ve discovered something greater: Death by luggage.”