“There are photographs under the pistol, showing his mother genitals. These genitals make no perceptible impression on him, though it was through them that he first entered the world.”

“Galt was the first writer to show the effects of the burgeoning industrial revolution, making him the first political novelist in the English language, and though his reputation has been overshadowed by Scott and Hogg, he is now recognised as one of the great writers of the age.”

“What I am after is the first impression - I want to show all one sees on first entering the room - what my eye takes in at first glance.”

“I saw the Colonel empty his revolver and go down under ten wild boys. A moment later they tossed his bleeding head into the air and started a ball game. Just at dusk the wild boys got up and padded away. They left the bodies stripped to the skin many with genitals cut off. The wild boys make little testicles in which they carry their hasish and khat.”

“A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.”

“Lir chiseled at the stone. It would take a month to make a perceptible impression on it. He had a few hours. Work harder, then.”

“[Final lines] mother, mother, save your unhappy son! Let a tear fall on his aching head! See how they torture him! Press the poor orphan to your bosom! He has no rest in this world; they hunt him from place to place.

Mother, mother, have pity on your sick child! And do you know that the Bey of Algiers has a wart under his nose?”

“We, too, must enter into the Saviour's sorrow. For us, if we believe in Him, He breaks the bread, and pours the wine: and when we eat and drink, we do show the Lord's death until He come. His death, not His life, though that was lustrous with a holiness without the shadow of a stain. His death, not His teaching, though that embodied the fullness of a wisdom that was Divine. His death, not His miracles, though His course was a march of mercy, and in His track of blessing the world rejoiced and was glad. His death! His body not glorious, but broken; His blood, not coursing through the veins of a conqueror, but shed, poured out for man. His death! Still His death! Grandest and most consecrating memory both for earth and heaven!”

“He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too great, nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by often failings; and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailings.”

“Indeed, faithful is the one who - when pleased and glad, his pleasure does not make him enter into sin and falsehood; and when unhappy and angry, his anger does not oust him from the world of righteousness; and when he gains power, his power does not make him commit excess, nor opression, nor make him go for a thing upon which he does not have any right.”