“In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammed was 'Read.”

“Right is right, even if you're alone.”

“Her library is a meeting place for all who love books. They discuss matters of the world and matters of the spirit.”

“Sometimes you had to be who you were and endure what happened to you, and to you alone, before you could understand the first thing about it.”

“If there is no God, how do we explain that a machine requires a maker, but the universe does not.”

“But all sudden things come from a deep study of conversion -- they are sudden only on the surface.”

“I wasn’t reading poetry because my aim was to work my way through English Literature in Prose A–Z.But this was different.I read [in, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot]: This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.I started to cry.(…)The unfamiliar and beautiful play made things bearable that day, and the things it made bearable were another failed family—the first one was not my fault, but all adopted children blame themselves. The second failure was definitely my fault.I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels.I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me.So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”