“Then as now, evil begins its courtship cloaked in light. And the heart embraces what is should flee. Forgetting it once had a true lover. Love will prove greater than lust. Sacrifice will overcome seduction. And blood will flow.”

“Antoine knew what it was like to flee, to shed a life as though it were a cloak. He had learned to pack light. The less he had, the less he had to leave behind.”

“But then she was not awkward, she was slow-flowing, graceful, seductive - a seductiveness that had nothing to do with breast and hips and legs, but was an invitation to forget the world in the recesses of the body”

“For Plato, the quickening of the heart that occurred when a person saw his or her loved one was just a step in the ascent to true love, which could happen only in the mind, after the lover comprehended what was eternally true and beautiful in the beloved. Platonic love existed beyond all the blood and heat contained in the heart. This split between passion and piety, between lust and love, would resonate throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and it continues up to the present day.”

“When evil strives to overcome good, when firepower is greater than the spoken word, then death rides a winged horse.”

“The evil and suffering in this world are greater than any of us can comprehend. But evil and suffering are not ultimate. God is. Satan, the great lover of evil and suffering, is not sovereign. God is.”