“If the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man to rule him.”

“And then earlier than that there were the crusades. The crusades were totally fucked. Richard the Lionheart, who had the heart of a lion as well as his own. He ripped it out of the lion, and the lion was left with a bicycle pump and not much to do.”

“Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain.”

“Up the road, in his shack, the old man was sleeping again. He was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about the lions.”

“The soul of man is the lamp of God,’ says a wise Jewish proverb. Man is a weak and miserable creature when God’s light is not burning in his soul. But when it burns (and it only burns in souls enlightened by religion), man becomes the most powerful creature in the world. And it cannot be otherwise, for what then works in him is not his own strength, but the strength of God.”

“Who owns a man, Durnik?” the blond young man asked sadly. “The one who rules him, or the one who pays him?”