"A spear carrier is somebody who stands in the hall when Caesar passes, comes to attention and thumps his spear. A spear carrier is the anonymous character cut down by the hero as he advances to save the menaced heroine. A spear carrier is a character put in a story to be used like a piece of disposable tissue. In a story, spear carriers never suddenly assert themselves by throwing their spears aside and saying, “I resign. I don’t want to be used.“ They are there to be used, either for atmosphere or as minor obstacles in the path of the hero. The trouble is that each of us is his own hero, existing in a world of spear carriers. We take no joy in being used and discarded. I was finding then, that wet, chilly, unhappy night, that I took no joy in seeing other people used and discarded.”"

"It left me there, the Compleat Young Girl, hell on wheels. I could build one-fifteenth of a log cabin, kill one-thirty-first of a tiger, kiss, do needlepoint, pass through an obstacle course, and come pretty close (in theory) to killing somebody with my bare hands. What did I have to worry about?"

"Brains are no good if you don’t use them."

"Some people get a feeling of power from being unpleasant."

"I am completely convinced that the ultimate weapon is one that you can hold in your hand, point at a person, and thereby completely disrupt his sense of balance. All that he could do is lie in a huddled heap and puke. It would probably disrupt the concept of heroics for all time."

"I hadn’t gone into the subject of dorm living too deeply with him, not because I hesitated to probe his tender spots but because I would have been probing my own. This is called tact, and is reputed to be a virtue."

"Whether or not your actions are determined, you have to act on the assumption that you have free will. If you are determined, your attempt at free will loses you nothing. However, if you are not determined and you act on the assumption that you are, you will never attempt anything. You will simply be a passive blob that things happen to."

"Population pressure is the ultimate cause of every war."

"You can’t stamp on people and not get hurt in return."

"There’s no reason to trade insults. We have our way of life and they have theirs. I wouldn’t live as they do, but disrespect seems pointless. I’m sure there are good people among them."

"The rest of our weekend—sleeping arrangements, hand-done work, hand-prepared food—was simple enough to please Thoreau, who I am convinced was a nice fellow who confused rustic vacations with life."

"A photographer's best work is, alas, generally done for himself."

"I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact. That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were right and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions."

"With no fact as a referent, what is normative is purely a matter of preference."

"Then he said something that was absolutely defining for him: "Write this down and never forget it: Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you will to love somebody, you can.""

"In his book Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson referred to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini as the three devils of the twentieth century. Interestingly, Nietzschean dogma influenced each of them."

"Truth by definition excludes."

"Truth has been relegated to subjectivity; beauty has been subjugated to the beholder; and as millions are idiotized night after night, a global commune has been constructed with the arts enjoying a totalitarian rule."

"Historic figures have homes to visit for posterity; the Lord of history left no home. Luminaries leave libraries and write their memoirs; He left one book, penned by ordinary people. Deliverers speak of winning through might and conquest; He spoke of a place in the heart."

"In naturalism, man is actually very insignificant, but arrogates to himself stupendous power. In Christianity, man is actually the apex of created significance, but is called to see it in abject humility."

"It is easier to hide behind philosophical arguments, heavily footnoted for effect, than it is to admit our hurts, our confusions, our loves, and our passions in the marketplace of life's heartfelt transactions."

"In other words, truth is not only a matter of offense, in that it makes certain assertions. It is also a matter of defense in that it must be able to make a cogent and sensible response to the counterpoints that are raised."

"Teaching at best beckons us to morality, but it is not in itself efficacious. Teaching is like a mirror. It can show you if your face is dirty, but it the mirror will not wash your face."

"Love is a command, not just a feeling. Somehow, in the romantic world of music and theater we have made love to be what it is not. We have so mixed it with beauty and charm and sensuality and contact that we have robbed it of its higher call of cherishing and nurturing."

"The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced the ultimate, and it has let you down."

"Humor aside, I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him."

"A good questioner should always have a follow-up question."

"Unless I understand the Cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must be precedence over what I prefer."

"For out of every hole the rats came tumbling."

"...he must need wish in a hurry; and wish he did, that the black pudding may come off his nose."

"Woe worth you, Molly Whuppie! never you come again Twice yet, carle, quoth she, I'll come to Spain."

"You don't know what these beans are, said the man [that Jack meets]. If you plant them overnight, by morning they grew right up to the sky."

"The sky is a-going to fall, I must go and tell the King."

"My man is an ogre and there is nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast."

"There once was upon a time a poor widow who had an only son Jack, and a cow called Milky-White."

"Who says that English folk have no fairy-tales of their own?"

"Out the Old Woman jumped (of the window). And whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there...or taken up by a constable to the House of Correction for the vagrant she was I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her."

"Little pig, little pig, let me come in. To which the pig answered: Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin. The wolf answered to that, Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow the house down."

"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive or be he dead I'll have his bones to grind my bread."

"Kind sir, if the truth I must tell, At the sign of Basin of Water I dwell."

"Turn again Whittington, Thrice Mayor of London"

"Well, he [the wolf] huffed, and he puffed, and he puffed, and he puffed and he puffed and huffed; but he could not get the house down."

"But the Harp called out quite loud: Master! Master!"

"Fee, fi, fo, fum I smell the blood of some earthly one."

"When the pig saw what he [the wolf] was about, he hung on a pot full of water, and made a blazing fire...and in fell the wolf..."

"No exercise of will can make any of us other than what we are, or more than marginally better than who we are."

"“Something tells me that this isn’t going to be as simple as it looks.” “What is?” Wald said, raising his eyebrows. “Nothing, of course. But hope springs eternal in the human spleen.”"

"He was getting to be a little old for combat or for princesses, but what was worse, he had become a lot more cynical without having become even slightly the wiser."

"It is written: That given any one of a thousand million possible paths, life will take them all; That worlds which will support life will give birth to it; That worlds which cannot support intelligent life will be colonized; And that where both can take place, both will take place. It is written that this is what the vast, unknowing interstellar stage is for: To be given consciousness and purpose while its gift of existence lasts. It is written: That this is a random process; That in the end all will be darkness and silence again; But that while it lasts, life spreads through it, to make it aware of its own vastness and beauty, which otherwise it can never have known. This is a gift; but the Giver is unknown. That too is written."

"The technicians thought I was crazy. Now, five months later, I’ve proved it."