“Sometimes it seems unfair that events so old can reach forward through the years, sinking claws into one's life and twisting all that follows it. Yet perhaps that is the ultimate justice: we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us. There is no escaping that, not for any of us.”

“We are a sum total of what we have learned from all who have taught us, both great and small.”

“Here at Seabrook, we judge a man by the sum of his actions, the sum. In this case we have a man with an unparalleled dediciation to this school and to the boys of this school. Does one error in judgement, however grievious, does that cancel out at a stroke all the good he’s done? The good of that care?”

“It seems we need someone to know us as we are - with all we have done - and forgive us. We need to tell. We need to be whole in someone's sight: Know this about me, and yet love me. Please.”

“There are books which we read early in life, which sink into our consciousness and seem to disappear without leaving a trace. And then one day we find, in some summing-up of our life and put attitudes towards experience, that their influence has been enormous.”

“Sometimes we can choose the paths we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.”