"Here, now, in the deep Middle Ages, all this served as a safety valve. People experienced the illusion of being at one with themselves, with others, with that mystical being that was there in the church, watching over them and preserving them, chiding and blessing, enlightening and repressing, uplifting and reconciling. A completely different, anxiety-ridden emotional state, and an understandable, but repellent, spiritual world."

“Reason is our guide, but the eye is its most trusted counselor.”

“Just try telling a teenager that he’s a conformist. Ha! It’s safer to tweak a tiger’s whiskers. Yet who’s most influenced by fads and fashions? Who is the easiest to turn into a raging mob? The teenager.”

“There are no uninteresting fates, and each man takes away the universe when he dies.”

“We all love mysteries in books and hate them in life. I’m no exception. After all, the reason we love mysteries in books is that the secret is revealed on the last page.”

“What used to be an advantage had quickly turned into a liability, proving once more that in the mountains, as in life, nothing comes easily.”

“When the mind tries to guess the trajectory of a future moral act and concentrates too strenuously on contradictory concepts, the concepts themselves become unclear, because every concept is as deep-rooted and murky in its beginnings as the reality of life that gave rise to it. And the mind falters, determination slips away, and everything seems confused and wrong. That’s how thinking can sometimes destroy determination.”