Christ surrounded himself with beggars, prostitutes, tax-collectors and fishermen. ... what he meant by this was that the divine spark is in every soul and is never extinguished.

I've done everything I wanted to do, even if I have had to pay a very high price - which has been the case most of the time.

Do you know what I've learned? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.

She regretted having taken his hand, she wanted to get away from there as soon as possible, to hide her shame, never again to see that man who had witnessed all that was most sordid in her, and who nevertheless continued to treat her with such tenderness. But again she remembered Mari's words: She didn't need to explain her life to anyone, not even to the young man standing before her.

It's not what enters men's mouth that is evil," said the alchemist. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.

Heaven and Earth are meeting in a storm that, when it's over, will leave the air purer and the leaves fertile, but before that happens, houses will be destroyed, centuries- old trees will topple, paradises will be flooded.

In adolescence she thought it was too early to choose, now in youth she was convinced it was too late to change.