Just as the purpose of the liver is to act as a sump for the poisons of the body, the soul has its organs for containing and isolating the toxic discharge of human suffering.

As it happens I don’t think it was God- the woman who saved me, she doesn’t look like she’s had much to do with angels, Perhaps the Devil was behind me all the time.

What are those humps on her chest?

Only inferior minds speak or write in order to discover what they think.

Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage – but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.

Listen. The Sanctuary of the Redeemers on Shotover Scarp is named after a damned lie for there is no redemption that goes on there and less sanctuary.

The mere adding of years to life is not living.

The search for knowledge and the discovery of a great weapon are virtually one and the same. War is the father of everything.

That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.

If you fight cruelty with kindness, it’s the kindness that goes away, not the cruelty.