“You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to “clear the numberless ascensions”* in about two minutes.”

“Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles.”

“When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, "Who is destroying the world?" You are.”

“Merkabah is translated as either meaning the throne of god or chariot. Both definitions imply a means of spiritual ascension, not a physical one. They only have it partly right.”

“I'm not involved in shame. Morals are learned in childhood, and I didn't have any such holiday called childhood.”

“We can’t all be Byronic adventurers like you Jude. Have you been wrestling with any brigands in the mountains there?” “No, but you’ve got to watch the drivers! Funny you should mention the poetic lord. He used to take his holidays down here, you know?” “What… picking up last-minute bargains with ‘EasyFrigate’?”