“His resiliency was not the resiliency of the dumb but of a lamb who can remember hurt but cannot sustain the anger or the bitterness that brittles the heart.”

“And because we have been given thought, will, and imagination, albeit on a human scale, we too have this power to create.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn't sleep. The imagination has terrifying power.”

“A sixth sense is a miraculous thing, which in itself suggests a supernatural order. The human intellect, however, for all its power and triumphs, is largely formed by this world and is therefore co...”

“It's a world of sorrow, Oddie, because we make it so.”

“Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it.”

“My other hand?' Lopen said. 'The one that was cut off long ago, eaten by a fearsome beast? It is making a rude gesture toward you right now. I thought you would want to know, so you can prepare to ...”

“I don't know if this deception qualified as a half-step down the slippery slope. I had no sensation of sliding. But of course we never notice the descent until we're rocketing along at high velocity.”

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect fo...”

“Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.”

“Don't cry, I'm sorry to have deceived you so much, but that's how life is.”