Religion is different from everything else; because in religion seeking is finding.

An artist's saddest secrets are those that have to do with his artistry.

The summer moon hung full in the sky. For the time being it was the great fact of the world.

The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

This land was an enigma. It was like a horse that no one knows how to break to harness, that runs wild and kicks things to pieces.

[Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.

The air was cool enough to make the warm sun pleasant on one's back and shoulders, and so clear that the eye could follow a hawk up and up, into the blazing blue depths of the sky.