“Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.”

“To be knocked out doesn’t mean what it seems. A boxer does not have to get up.”

“This idea that umpires are always right is a load of old cobblers. What I want to know is: Who umpires the umpires? The players suffer from their mistakes, but no one ever seems to get rid of the umpires themselves. Being an umpire is a people job: that's why Dickie Bird was good at it. Yes, he was a loony, and he made mistakes - everyone does. But he knew how to deal with people, so they respected him.”

“In my life so far, I have discovered that there are really only two kinds of people: those who are for you, and those who are against you. Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other.”

“The idea of Islamic renewal, which understands Islam as capable not only of educating human beings but also of ordering the world, will always have two types of people as its opponents: conservatives who want the old forms, and modernists who want someone else's forms.”

“Why do people want to talk to each other? I mean, what are the things people always want to find out about other people?”

“Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will.”

“What happens to people that love each other?'
'I suppose they have whatever they have and they are more fortunate than others. Then one of them gets the emptiness for ever.”

“What have you got against people?"
Finn hated crowds. Thousands of people bumping and churning. "Too many opinions.”

“Love naturally reverses the idea of obedience, and causes the struggle between any two people who truly love each other to be not who shall command, but, who shall yield.”