“Each simplest act, each hidden intention, had to be cut to the Rule and polished and perfected like the tiny stones of a mysterious mosaic which had no meaning when looked at one by one, except that one by one they fitted together and suggested a pattern. The pattern was the formation of the nun but she was too close to see it.”

“For she had discovered that as well as the evil web there was another. This too bound spirits together, but not in a tangle, it was a patterned web and one could see the silver pattern when the sun shone upon it. It seemed much frailer than the dark tangle, that had a hideous strength, but it might not be so always, not in the final reckoning.”

“There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet”

“I always feel....the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end.”

“I do believe in fate, Anne-not the blind fate that gives one no freedom of choice, but a fate that sets down a pattern for each of our lives and gives us choices, numerous choices, by which to find that pattern and be happy.”

“One should never mistake pattern for meaning.”