“I rememeber asking a wise man, once . . . 'Why do Men fear the dark?' . . . 'Because darkness' he told me, 'is ignorance made visible.' 'And do Men despise ignorance?' I asked. 'No,' he said, 'they prize it above all things--all things!--but only so long as it remains invisible.”

“Why haven’t you asked me how I do my tricks?” Celia asks, once they have reached the point where she is certain he is not simply being polite about the matter.“Because I do not wish to know,” he says. “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.”

“He said, speaking more to himself than to me: 'It was knowledge I sought. Knowledge which is clean and pure, far above the cheating and deceiving in which most men spend their lives.'And do you not find it,' I asked, 'this knowledge which you prize?'In part,' he said. 'I find other things, too. Things I do not desire but must accept. There is still cheating and deceiving.”

“A man remains ignorant because he loves ignorance, and chooses ignorant thoughts; a man becomes wise because he loves wisdom and chooses wise thoughts.”

“A man once said, 'All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.' Mark Twain, you know. He had a fine mustache. Men of wisdom so often do.”

“...I asked Ochto what in the name of all that was sacred he thought he was doing."Helping you," said Dirnes."Why?"They put the soldier down, and Ochto straightened to look me in the eye. "Because I know nothing about kings and princes, but I know men.”