More generally, people who lived in a period when maternal, infant and childhood mortality were still high would have been tougher than most of us can imagine.

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life.

Every sorrow suggests a thousand songs and every song recalls a thousand sorrows and so they are infinite in number and all the same.

I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally.

We are part of a mystery, a splendid mystery within which we must attempt to orient ourselves if we are to have a sense of our own nature.

This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.

Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me

When we did not move or speak, there was no proof that we were there at all.

Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.

I will always buy extra yarn. I will not try to tempt fate.

Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.

Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.

To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason - to believe something by faith - is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.

Magnus wants to shout at me, don’t you, Magnus?” (Jace) “Yes,” Magnus said, tearing his eyes away from Alec long enough to scowl. -pg.275-

Fight back! Whenever you are offered violence, fight back! The aggressor does not fear the law, so he must be taught to fear you. Whatever the risk, and at whatever the cost, fight back!

I only want to walk a little longer in the cold blessing of the rain, and lift my face to it.

Music should be an elective experience. You should go, "I'm going to sit down and listen to some Beethoven, by God," and then you get to hear it.

If you think about basic science or coming up with new theories of mathematics, these are not the kinds of things which are necessarily a well-defined market to pay people.