“The hardest thing of all is when pain is hidden behind a mask of calm.”

“Forgiving was the hardest thing. Sometimes forgiving was the hardest thing in the whole world.”

“That's the hardest thing of all--never to become cynical, never to lose faith, never to become indifferent.”

“Would any grown girl in Russia be frightened by a "room of horror"? Westerner's lives are too calm and peaceful, is makes them afraid of all sorts of nonsense...”

“An assassin can be found for every president. And for every prophet there are a thousand interpreters to distort the essence of the religion, to replace the bright flame with the heat of the inquisitors' pyres. The time came when every book was cast into the fire, when every symphony was reduced to a popular tune and played in all the drinking dens. A sound philosophical basis could be set in place under any vile nonsense.”

“We'll get into the plane and you'll have a cup of coffee, even a sip of brandy is permissible. And you'll think. Think hard. So hard I can hear your brains creaking. And it will be very good if by the time we reach Edinburgh you already know how to get the Crown of All Things. Because we don't have any time to spare. Only twelve hours until the bomb goes off.""You bastard," I said."No, I'm a highly effective personnel manager," Edgar said, with a smile.”

“Loneliness, dejection, the contempt or pity of people around you--these are unpleasant feelings. But they are precisely the things that produce genuine Dark Ones.”