Nothing ever fits the palm so perfectly, or feels so right, or inspires so much protective instinct as the hand of a child

Praising people behind their back is monstrously unfair, because the one thing you can't defend yourself against is the good that people say about you.

you can't kill love. you can't even kill it with hate. you can kill in-love, and loving, and even loveliness. you can kill them all, or numb them into dense, leaden regret, but you can't kill love itself. love is the passionate search for a truth other than your own; and once you feel it, honestly and completely, love is forever. every act of love, every moment of the heart reaching out, is a part of the universal good: it's a part of God, or what we call God, and it can never die.

Love is the opposite of power. That's why we fear it so much.

I think the novel form chose me. I was a writer before I became a criminal... my first instinct was to write.

but there's no nation uncorrupted. there's no system that's immune to the misuse of money.

The truth is that there are no good men, or bad men,' he said. 'It is the deeds that have goodness or badness in them. There are good deeds, and bad deeds. Men are just men - it is what they do, or refuse to do, that links them to good and evil. The truth is that an instant of real love, in the heart of anyone - the noblest man alive or the most wicked - has the whole purpose and process and meaning of life within the lotus-folds of its passion. The truth is that we are all, every one of us, every atom, every galaxy, and every particle of matter in the universe, moving toward God.