“Evil is abstract but existent. It's a negativity: untruth, dishonesty, abuse of trust. Evil, for us, isn't in-built - into people, into the cosmic scheme, but is a violation.”

“Perceptions? Yesugei didn't give a goat's toenail about perceptions, but society was society. ...'Who gives a billy's balls what one or two wives have to say?''Quite, father.' This was strong langu...”

“Temujin had had not the slightest notion that bad emotion can just grow and grow from inside you and squeeze out the universe.”

“Temujin watched Borte's ballet, her elegance on the fulcrum of her hips.”

“Besides, they cast an eye to the past, they didn't disgrace the ground they trod and they believed in the future again. That's what a victory does for you.”

“For a few heady weeks of the year the steppe in a binge throws out a wilderness of flowers that tangle your hooves and confuse your horse.”

“You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and inte...”

“Intelligence minus purpose equals stupidity.”

“But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence ...”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”