“Then a strange moment came, a moment of the kind that determines the fate of nations, because when a crowd loses its fear of an army the world changes.”

“It's risky to try to determine the moments when a person's life is changed forever. I don't even know if such moments exist.”

“We are only moments away from the past. But it only takes a moment for everything to change, for the world to wobble on its axis and make the familiar strange.”

“Nation after nation, when at the zenith of its power, has proclaimed itself invincible because its army could shake the earth with its tread and its ships could fill the seas, but these nations are dead, and we must build upon a different foundation if we would avoid their fate.”

“For fate may hang on any moment and at any moment be changed.”

“Personally, I always wondered about authors and celebrities who loudly declared there was no God. It was usually when they were healthy and popular and being listened to by crowds. What happens, I wondered, in the quiet moments before death? By then, they have lost the stage, the world has moved on. If suddenly, in their last gasping moments, through fear, a vision, a late enlightenment, they change their minds about God, who would know?”