“...he found it difficult to discuss any of his activities, which seemed to him no more than the hole through which he was falling.”

“Formerly...when he tried to do anything for the good of everybody, for humanity...for the whole village, he had noticed that the thoughts of it were agreeable, but the activity itself was always unsatisfactory; there was no full assurance that the work was really necessary, and the activity itself, which at first seemed so great, ever lessened and lessened till it vanished. But now...when he began to confine himself more and more to living for himself, though he no longer felt any joy at the thought of his activity, he felt confident that his work was necessary, saw that it progressed far better than formerly, and that it was always growing more and more.”

“A difficult journey is more revealing of character than any discussion or analysis.”

“The pitch to which he was aroused was tremendous. All the fighting blood of his breed was up in him and surging through him. This was living., though he did not know it. He was realizing his own meaning in the world; he was doing that for which he was made.... He was justifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.”

“The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead.”

“In the talcum on the floor around him he could see the imprints of his mother's feet. She had moved from side to side, propelled by an over-eager partner, perhaps one of the Japanese officers to whom she was teaching to tango. Jim tried out the dance steps himself, which seemed far more violent than any tango he had ever seen, and managed to fall and cut his hand on the broken mirror.”