“Because of its search for comprehensiveness, his narrative is an organically multidirectional movement rather than a straight journey on a highway interrupted by less important deviations to the margins: where is the main road if so many cities are to be visited? We can still imagine one road, but then it is a road that meanders everywhere, a road that wanders itself.”

“Socrates and Phaedrus, like Odysseus, must sail by the Sirens without being enchanted: instead of listening to their voices, they will outdo them with their own logos. . . . Plato's Odysseus does not even let the song of the Sirens enter him but deafens it with his own rational discourse. Philosophy is itself a Sirens' song, the antidote against the dispersion and drowning of the soul into the body, that is, against the ultimate wandering.”

“There is no straight and easy road to the city of modernity. Whatever the main road chosen, there will be many tempting and ruinous side roads; there will be many marshes and wastes on either side, and many wrecked aspirations will lie there, rusting and gathering dust. Those who arrive at the city will discover it to be quite different from the destination which they and their ancestors originally sought. Yet, some roads are better than others; some destinations are better than others. Even if none is perfect and none corresponds to the voyagers' hope on starting, some of the destinations will turn out to have been worth the travail, worth the effort of the voyagers and of their friends who helped them on their way.”

“What's your road, man? - holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It's an anywhere road for anybody anyhow. Where body how?”

“But one must go where one's road leads, even when it's a distressing road.”

“As with all journeys, the Way has an end, though it should not be imagined as a straight road leading to a fixed destination but rather as a majestic mountain whose peak conceals the presence of God. There are, of course, many paths to the summit-some better than others. But because every path eventually leads to the same destination, which path one takes is irrelevant.”

“All my work and all my dealings with people feel very easy. Actually, everything is simple. There is one straight road - if you open your eyes you can go along it. I don't see the need to search for all sorts of clever short cuts. Happiness and sadness are both on the road - there is no road that avoids them - but peace is found only on this road, nowhere else.”