“Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of meeAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all th’ Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail’d;Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.Not free, what proof could they have giv’n sincereOf true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,Where only what they needs must do, appear’d,Not what they would? what praise could they receive?What pleasure I from such obedience paid,When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d,Made passive both, had served necessity,Not mee. They therefore as to right belong’d,So were created, nor can justly accuseThir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;As if Predestination over-rul’dThir will, dispos’d by absolute DecreeOr high foreknowledge; they themselves decreedThir own revolt, not I; if I foreknewForeknowledge had no influence on their fault,Which had no less prov’d certain unforeknown.So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,Or aught by me immutable foreseen,They trespass, Authors to themselves in allBoth what they judge and what they choose; for soI form’d them free, and free they must remain,Till they enthrall themselves: I else must changeThir nature, and revoke the high DecreeUnchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’dThir freedom: they themselves ordain’d thir fall.”

“Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who didn't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves- people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.”

“It's impossible to find happiness if you're an orphan.""That's not true. Orphans are the only ones who are free to find their own happiness; they don't have their own history so they create it for themselves.""But, Z, that's just an illusion. Their lives are determined for them by people who have no relation to them whatsoever -- total strangers dictate their future. They have no attachment to anything, they stumble around in the dark until one day something happens to set them on a different, random path. I don't call that freedom.""But that's just what it's like for all of us!”

“These are the things before me. And as I stand here at the door of glory, I look behind me for the last time. I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.”

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.”

“If a man could taste wind and fire, they would taste like Katherine. When he stood in high places looking down on things made small by distance, he tried to feel what the eagle felt soaring free on the wind. He was an earthbound man. Only his spirit could ever soar, and only Katherine raised him so high.”