“If there are no books. There is no civilization.”

“Wherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph, just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waists their enemies' heads. Where they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile, they reestablished literacy and breathed new life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe.And that is how the Irish saved civilization.”

“Is is seldom possible to say of the medievals that they *always* did one thing and *never* another; they were marvelously inconsistent. ”

“We will never make it under our own stem. Having made this connection, Augustine falls apart. What he describes at this point in the "Confessions" is a full-scale emotional breakdown.”

“I see a sweet country. I could rest my weapon there.”

“We followed the rump of a misguiding woman. It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.”

“They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people. They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, fucking, drinking, art - poetry for intense emotion, the music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one's person and possessions.”