Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.

The thoughts of all men arise from the darkness. If you are the movement of your soul, and the cause of that movement precedes you, then how could you ever call your thoughts your own? How could you be anything other than a slave to the darkness that comes before?

It is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.

To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one is told, but to surrendor the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.

What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and doubt? Between renouncing the mystery and embracing it?

There was such a difference, he thought, between the beauty that illuminated, and the beauty that was illuminated.

Consequences lost all purchase when they became mad. And desperation, when pressed beyond anguish, became narcotic.