Arthur’s fingers tighten on the silver-braided hilt: see how naturally it fits his hand! He pulls. The Sword of Britain slides from its stone sheath. The ease with which this is accomplished shines in the wonder in Arthur’s eyes. He truly cannot believe what he has done. Nor can he comprehend what it means.

It is the poor man who clenches so tightly to the gold he is given - for fear of losing it. The man of wealth spends his gold freely to accomplish his will in the world. It is the same with life.' Suddenly ashamed of my conspicuous poverty, I lowered my eyes. But Scatha placed a hand beneath my chin and raised my head. 'Cling too tightly to your life and you will lose it, my Reluctant Warrior. You must become the master of your life, not its slave.

Two friends . . . there are stronger forces on earth, perhaps, but few as tenacious and enduring as the bond between true friends.

Truth is a constant delight to those that love her; such beauty holds no power to offend.

To see evil and call it good, mocks God. Worse, it makes goodness meaningless. A word without meaning is an abomination, for when the word passes beyond understanding the very thing the word stands for passes out of the world and cannot be recalled.

Jump blind and you might find yourself on the rim of a raging volcano, or smack in the middle of a battlefield during a savage war, or on a swiftly tilting ice floe in a tempest-tossed sea.

We in our present generation stand on the cusp of a new and glorious dawn when mastery of these energies lies fully within our grasp as secret yields to inquiry, which yields to experimentation, which leads to verification and duplication, which, in the final course, leads to knowledge.