“You think religions are constant things? inflexible and solid and form full-grown? Religions evolve. They grow out of a need, just like any other natural phenomenon, and they follow the same natura...”

“Everybody talks about freedom, citizens," the big man said gently, seeming to draw upon that very sure source of personal knowledge again, "but they dont really want it. Half of them wants it but t...”

“He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up yo...”

“The boy Prewitt loved the songs because they gave him something, a first hint that pain might not be pointless if you could only turn it into something.”

“All right, he thought, okay; if thats the way it is; a savagery of anger in him now at the picture. They call them "pin-up girls" and think its cute how "our boys," now that they're drafted, love t...”

“One way, he thought, the whole thing of ring fighting was hurting somebody else, deliberately, and particularly when it was not necessary. Two men who have nothing against each other get in a ring ...”

“[H]iding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn't make you nice, it just makes you a liar.”

“Love is honesty. Love is a mutual respect for one another.”

“The fact that Ridge has been honest in his conversations with me is not something he did wrong. The fact that he has feelings for me also isnt wrong, when you know exactly how much hes fought those...”

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

“Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constituitionalism and legality, the belief in 'the law' as something above the state and above the individual, something which i...”

“It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality”