“As if the night had said to me, You are the night and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms One with the shadows. Without nightmare. An inexplicable peace.”

“A summer rain had left the night clean and sparkling with drops of water. I leaned against the end pillar of the gallery, my head touching the soft tendrils of a jasmine which grew there in a const...”

“It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.”

“It was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world...on a windswept ocean beach. There was nothing but the soft roar of the waves.”

“What is fear after all? It is indecision. You seek some way to resist, escape. There is none.”

“If you really want peace in any world you have to learn to say nothing.”

“I am quite sure I am more afraid of people who are themselves terrified of the devil than I am of the devil himself.”

“If the devil is sending you thoughts of fear, resist him, stop the thoughts”

“Perhaps living in fear can drive all devils out of a person.”

“Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.”

“I know that the whole pointthe only pointis tofind the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse tolet them go.”

“No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get. Bought a little more with a lot of hard work.”

“If in any quest for magic, in any search for sorcery, witchery, legerdemain, first check the human spirit.”

“It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. ...”

“Magic or nature, they were much the same thing to Magnus.”