“Have you noticed the words which Old Testament people use when someone important calls them by name? They don't say "What?" or "Yes?" They answer with the curious sentence, "Here I am". So much is in that sentence: readiness to respond, a willing servitude, an offering of oneself to the other.”

“But this is my contentment, that I've lost what I never needed and what I need I can never lose: these two things, universal nature and one's personal virtue.For this is the intention of the creator of the world, whatever he may be - whether an all-powerful Deity, or some incorporeal Reason contriving vast works, or a divine Spirit pervading all things from the least to the largest with a uniform energy, or Fate, or an inalterable sequence of Causes clinging one to another - whatever the Intender, I say, this is his intention: that nothing of ours can fall under the control of others except that which is finally and truly worthless to us.The best of any man lies beyond the power of other men, either to give it or take it away.”

“I have never loved Fortune, even when she seemed most to love me. I never considered her treasures mine, neither her money, nor her office nor her influence. Her theft of these things, therefore. has taken away nothing of my own. Mother, my roof is the stars. My house is human goodness. My body is clothed. My stomach is full. And the thirstier part of me, my soul, drinks gladly from the pool of my books.So much for me. I am just fine.”

“Neither does she have a name--none that I could find even in my most persistent researches: Julian's gentle lady, I mean; she whom I sought and chased and wooed (as it were) down a warren of historical tunnels.”

“And "sharing the work of survival," therefore, means resisting every temptation towards independence, towards personal liberty, towards "doing your own thing". This takes s sober vigilance and a persistent labour in a world which elevates the individual above the community, in a society which claims that individual desires are more important than contracts, commitments, and the good of the family”

“So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore.”

“In the bedroom the truer, unpremeditated behavior of intimacy appears, the way this spouse relates to others on the most personal level, body to body and soul to soul. Is he truly patient in sexuality? So he seemed on long spring evenings. Or does he push forward at his own speed to his own satisfaction? And does he consider his satisfaction the measure of his prowess? As he acts here, uncovered, so does he act—more subtly and covertly—in the rest of the marriage.” P35”