“She had caused to surround us the very atmosphere of "home," so that however far we traveled, however strange the territory, I was "home" as long as I was with her. ”

“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.”

“We never slam the door on flattery, we nudge it shut like a man rejecting his mistress: if she nudges back, we're delighted – and if she breaks it down, we rejoice.”

“When a desire is born in us , we have a choice. When it exists still in its infancy, we have a choice. We can carefully refuse its existence altogether, since it needs our complicity to exist. Or else we can attend to it, think about it, fantasize about it - feed it! The desire itself overpowers us, commanding action, demanding satisfaction.”

“That is what grace does. It comes as a surprise; it lingers in the rare atmosphere of love, since love itself is breathed by it and love by it is made manifest. This expression of love is "ecstasy" in the Greek meaning of that word: to "stand outside" the ordinary, outside predetermined marital contracts, outside the systematic and the expected”

“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.”