“Stillness offers an experience of being and a recognition that being . . . my essence . . . is a part of all Being, all Essence.”

“Mmm, being irresistibly likeable is such a trial,' she drawled in an impeccable aristocratic whine. 'One is constantly in demand, but one must do one's duty, mustn't one, dear chap? Noblesse oblige and all that...”

“I love being reminded that existence itself is all about the tangling of souls.”

“She felt shy, like a precious gift being gloatingly unwrapped, but she didn’t resent his moment of purely masculine triumph. The glory of the moment was also hers, this beautiful man hers. He was giving himself to her and asking nothing but what she was willing to give in return.”

“Souls were webs of light that contained the essence of a human's life. Memories and loves, children and families. Every moment of life, pressing in”

“I am not sorry, but this has hurt my heart and spirit more than all the other trials, for being forsaken is worse than being killed. (Sept 5, 1881)”

“What does it mean that we find victims who suffer with dignity more attractive than victims who don’t? What does it mean that we don’t mind it when perpetrators, torn apart by their own experiences, weep openly—but we are rendered uncomfortable when victims do the same? I don’t mean that each and every person has this experience: many of us feel like weeping when we see the carnage created by a suicide bombing and the grieving and shocked faces of the survivors. I mean instead that in all I have read, I detect a strong cultural bias toward aversion when confronted with victims who act as if they have suffered.[…]“Fragile, powerless, and helpless victims make us uncomfortable, evoke complicated responses in us, and make it hard for us to empathize with the humiliation they underwent.[…]one claim I make in different ways in the book—and very explicitly in chapter 3—is that to be really credible, a victim has to appear to have mastered his or her suffering.”