“We are never prepared for what we expect.”

“We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.”

“Unless you think you can do better than Tolstoy, we don’t need you.”

“I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.”

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”

“For this is the journey that men make, to find themselves. If they fail in this, it doesn't matter much what else they find.”

“A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”