“evil is, after all, only a deficiency of goodness.”

“People need dreams, there's as much nourishment in 'em as food.”

“It's compassion that makes gods of us.”

“Brainwashing, thought Mrs. Pollifax contemptuously, and suddenly realized that she was not afraid. She had endured other crises without losing her dignity--births, widowhood, illnesses--and she was experienced enough to know now that everything worthwhile took time and loneliness, perhaps even one's death as well.”

“evil is, after all, only a deficiency of goodness.”

“Once upon a time, [the guru] said, when God had finished making the world, he wanted to leave behind Him for man a piece of His own divinity, a spark of His essence, a promise to man of what he could become, with effort. He looked for a place to hide this Godhead because, he explained, what man could find too easily would never be valued by him."Then you must hide the Godhead on the highest mountain peak on earth," said one of His councilors.God shook His head. "No, for man is an adventuresome creature and he will soon enough learn to climb the highest mountain peaks.""Hide it then, O Great One, in the depths of the earth!""I think not," said God, "for man will one day discover that he can dig into the deepest parts of the earth.""In the middle of the ocean then, Master?"God shook His head. "I've given man a brain, you see, and one day he'll learn to build ships and cross the mightiest oceans.""Where then, Master?" cried His councilors.God smiled. "I'll hide it in the most inaccessible place of all, and the one place that man will never think to look for it. I'll hide it deep inside of man himself.”

“I wasn't offering her pity," Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. "Tragedies don't interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, that's where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy.”

“the problems changed, but people were the same”