“But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.”

“Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.”

“I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.”

“Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended. ”

“Why do you have to be the same as the others? ...Most of them are stupid.”

“He believed in Communism the way most people believed in God: he would not be greatly surprised or disappointed if he turned out to be wrong, and meanwhile it made little difference to the way he lived.”

“Hunger is the best seasoning.”