"History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own."

"The practical reality is that any present-tense version of the world is unstable. What we currently consider to be true--both objectively and subjectively--is habitually provisional."

"The tree (of Islam) is of artificial planting. Instead of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to the various requirements of time and clime and circumstance, expanding with the genial sunshine and rain from heaven, it remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted some twelve centuries ago."

"... When someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won't laugh mindlessly, but he'll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brillance."

"You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things.' Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. 'How, though?' Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. 'Memorize it. Then write it down for him."

"...You do yourself no favour if you let your sense of doubt-mistrust-scepticism to rise up within you to the point where you must look every gift horse in the mouth..."

"This is not a dirty little secret which was discovered just yesterday. But, if you follow the Golden Rule, good things happen to you and those around you."