“He wanted pain, I saw that in him, and what a man wants he will often manage to find.”

“Pain was something to get used to, to inure yourself against. I would rather hurt myself than be hurt by someone else, and so I took up this practice with a sense of purpose and without remorse.”

“Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.”

“But in battle you cannot tell another when it is his time to enter the World-to-Come, nor is it possible to keep any man in this world when he wishes to leave it behind.”

“But what we are given is taken as well, so that we know God's glory comes to us from His will alone.”

“Our rest is formed by our waking life and our waking life is formed by our sorrows.”

“The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to ...”

“Silence is the mother of truth.”

“Silence is a powerful tool.”