“...this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings.”

“...this blessing of loneliness was not really loneliness. Real loneliness was something unendurable. What one wanted when exhausted by the noise and impact of physical bodies was not no people but disembodied people; all those denizens of beloved books who could be taken to one's heart and put away again, in silence, and with no hurt feelings.”

“All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law as of all benign laws is fear.”

“Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.”

“Peace ... was contingent upon a certain disposition of the soul a disposition to receive the gift that only detachment from self made possible.”

“All we are asked to bear we can bear. That is a law of the spiritual life. The only hindrance to the working of this law as of all benign laws is fear.”

“... 'Many waters cannot quench love' was said of divine, not human, love, which the Dean knew was not always tough enough to survive the indifference of misery. That was one of the chief reasons why he struggled to do away with misery.”

“Ferranti's thoughts had been his. As before he had understood his remorse so now he understood the mental chains that had imprisoned him. The poor wretch could not move. Misery had become apathy and apathy had brought the inevitable paralysis of the will.”

“A well-trained dog is like religion, it sets the deserving at their ease and is a terror to evildoers.”

“She knew that pleasure, to be pleasure, must come to an end.”

“All human beings have their otherness and it is that which cries out to the heart.”

“There had come to him one of those moments of quiet despair that lie in wait for even the happiest. Stealthy-footed they leap upon us, as we walk along the street, as we sit at evening with fruit and wine upon the table and laughter on our lips, as we wake suddenly from sleep in the hour before dawn; neither at our work nor our play nor our prayers are we safe, those moments can leap at any time out of the blackness around human life and suddenly the colors that we have nailed to our mast are there no longer and all that we have grasped is dust.”