“Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treadsAnd recks not his own read.”

“A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity.”

“You know the way Jesus rips open his shirt to show us his heart, all flaming and thorny, the way he points to it. I’m afraid the way I’ll miss you will be this obvious.”

“Families are like countries. They have their own language and jokes and secrets and assumptions about the right and wrong ways of doing things, and some of that always shows in the children, the way something of Germany or Australia always shows in a German or an Australian, no matter where they go. Outsiders like it or they don't, they feel at home there or they don't. It's like the taste of cilantro.”

“Which father, which teacher, could prevent him from living his own life, from soiling himself with life, from loading himself with sin, from swallowing the bitter drink himself, from finding his own path? Do you think, my dear friend, that anybody is spared this path? Perhaps your little son, because you would like to see him spared sorrow and pain and disillusionment? But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest.”

“Show me the path I must walk and do not let me stumble in the dark places that lie ahead.”