We have lost the invaluable faculty of being shocked a faculty which has hitherto almost distinguished the Man or Woman from the beast or child.

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.

The real job of every moral teacher is to keep bringing us back to the simple principles, which we're so anxious not to see.

Man must endure his going hence.

And that's why, when they want to get rid of anyone, they usually bring him down here (like they were doing with me) and say they'll leave him to the ghosts. But I always wondered if they didn't really drown 'em or cut their throats. I never quite believed in the ghosts. But those two cowards you've just shot believed all right. They were more scared of taking me to my death than I was of going.

Before God closed in on me, I was offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. But I feel my decision was not so important. I was the object rather than the subject in this affair.