“And blessed be the first sweet suffering that I felt in being conjoined with love and the bow and the shafts with which I was pierced, and the wounds that run to the depths of my heart…” any man who loves this poem as I do, must be my master... And any man who feels as I do about these words must be my drinking companion.”

“But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must for ever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?”

“Such were the factors that detached Ormus Cama from the ordinary ties of family life. The ties that strangle us, which we call love. Because of the loosening of these ties he became, with all the attendant pain of such becoming, free.But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must forever after fear its loss, or the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?”

“...in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I'm afraid, with the shadows of imperfections.”

“O my vanity I am an arrogant man, is this weakness, is it just a dream of power? Must I betray myself for a seat on the council? Is this sensible and wise or is it hollow and self-loving? I don’t even know if the Grandee is sincere. Does he know? Perhaps not even he. I am weak and he’s strong, the offer gives him many ways of ruining me. But I, too, have much to gain. The souls of the city, of the world, surely they are worth three angels? Is Allah so unbending that he will not embrace three more to save the human race?”

“When you pray for what you most want in the world, its opposite comes along with it. I was given a woman whom I truly loved and who truly loved me. The opposite side of such a love is the pain of its loss. I can only feel such pain today because until yesterday I knew that love.”

“Love, my child, is a thing that every mother learns; it is not born with a baby, but made; and for eleven years, I have learned to love you as my son.”