“Killing is easy," said Mo, "Dying is harder...”

“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”

“Read and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can't change it' - don't believe a word.”

“Courage was something John Reckless only ever wished he had. Courage was not a given; it was acquired, earned. You had to take the difficult paths, and John had always picked the easy ones.”

“Words,words filled the night like the fragrance of invisible flowers.”

“Children, they're the same everywhere. Greedy little creatures but the best listeners in the world -any world. The very best of all.”

“Long ago there was a little boy who lived in the wood with his father and his sister. One night, the three of them were out collecting firewood when they heard a low, delicate whimper. The father r...”

“Beasts bounding through time. Van Gogh writing his brother for paintsHemingway testing his shotgunCeline going broke as a doctor of medicinethe impossibility of being humanVillon expelled from Pari...”

“Every once in a while, I get the urge. You know what Im talking about, dont you? The urge for destruction. The urge to hurt, maim, kill. Its quite a thing, to experience that urge, to let it wash o...”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce that it is not genteel comedy even that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundes...”

“Let us love. Let our lives be a perpetual song of love for God, first of all, and for all human beings who suffer, love, and mourn. Let deep joy live in us. Let us be like the lark, enemy of the ni...”

“She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.”

“Over the summit, I saw the so-called Mono desert lying dreamily silent in the thick, purple light -- a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnished granite.”

“Love is a weapon of Light, and it has the power to eradicate all forms of darkness. That is the key. When we offer love even to our enemies, we destroy their darkness and hatred...”