“Whether or not that’s how it is,” I said, “we must live according to what we believe, not the beliefs of others.”“The beliefs of others are not irrelevant, not when they shape the world we live in!”“I didn’t say they were irrelevant. But they will never dictate my judgment or my decisions,” I snapped back. “Because others believe something does not make it true. You are not stupid because Plato says you must be, nor is Cleopatra a whore because some Roman wit will say it. I will never trust any learned opinion more than what I see in front of my face.”

“But if the things I believe are right and true, then what fear have I of challenge, for will those things I learn not simply prove what is? And if the things I believe are not right and true, would it not be better for me to know that and face it like a man?”

“Have you ever done something so horrible and so irreparable that you knew there was nothing you could ever do to fix it?”“No,” I said gently. “Mostly because I’m eight.”

“I have this friend, Jake," Mr. Mitchell says, sitting on the edge of his desk. "One day, I needed a favor. It wasn't a big favor, but I called him and told him I needed something. Know what he said?" We shake our heads."He said, 'Sure.' Before he eve knew what i was going to ask him. You know why?"We shake our heads again. "Because he trusted me not to ask him to do something he couldn't or wouldn't want to do. He knew that whatever i asked for, he would help me simply because he was my friend and I needed help. That's true friendship.”

“He chuckled. "I cannot speak for other men, but I want the woman who stumbles over a word like virgin and can say whore without raising a blush." His smile faded and he spoke soberly. "Your soldier… your first love… and every circumstance that followed in some way brought you to me, and while I can wish that you had never had your heart hurt, that you had never suffered even a moment of doubt, of pain, of sadness… of betrayal, I also know that you would in some way be changed. It would have made your life different. Mine also." North gave her hand a light squeeze. "Whether we are shaped by the circumstances of our lives, or by our perceptions of them, I still find I very much admire the shape you have become.”

“One's life is more formed, I sometimes think, by books than by human beings: it is out of books one learns about love and pain at second hand. Even if we have the happy chance to fall in love, it is because we have been conditioned by what we have read, and if I had never known love at all, perhaps it was because my father's library had not contained the right books.”

“I believe that there's more to life than what we see.”