“What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?”

“Max would conclude, "that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.”

“Hed meant to forgive his brother, maybe even imagined he had. Hed also meant to learn to trust him, but instead merely fell into the habit of waiting for him to fuck up again.”

“You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?”

“One of the odd things about middle age...was the strange decisions a man discovers hes made by not really making them.”

“To his surprise he...discovered that it was possible to be good at what you had little interest in, just as it had been possible to be bad at somethingthat you cared about a great deal.”

“Youre probably wondering what the heck I mean by The Pillars of Your Life, right? Well this is simple. Its the things that make your life what it is. The things or people that make you, you. Theres...”

“That was when it was all made painfully clear to me. When you are a child, there is joy. There is laughter. And most of all, there is trust. Trust in your fellows. When you are an adult...then come...”

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, an...”

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

“We limit ourselves and God who wants to work through us”

“God can only work through those who have totally identified themselves with His will and purpose”

“The sins of women and children, domestic servants and the weak, the poor and the ignorant, are the sins of the husbands and fathers, the masters, the strong and the rich and the educated.”

“I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.”

“Told often enough that they are the source of sin, women may well begin feeling guilty as they accept the necessity for penance. Taught effectively enough that they are irrelevant to the important ...”