“In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood.”

“There was a time when I believed I was the redeemed one, the boy borne safely home on the ebb of whatever freak tide carried Peter and Jamie away. Not any more. In ways too dark and crucial to be called metaphorical, I never left that wood.”

“Believe me, if you’re a teenager, you’re always in the damned woods. Literally, you’re in the woods — probably too much you’re in the woods. And metaphorically you’re in the woods, in your life.”

“We couldn't see the real dark for the metaphorical dark. Because of the metaphorical dark, the death-dark, we were constantly concerned to banish the natural dark.”

“Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.”

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”