Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?

How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.

The night lifted, leaving behind it a grayish light the color of stagnant water. Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in mid-air, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. The face was my own.

We were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were no longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life.

If men and women were surer of their God there would be more genuine manliness, womanliness, and godliness in the world, and a whole lot less fear of each other.

Sometimes when we are called to obey, the fear does not subside and we are expected to move against the fear. One must choose to do it afraid.

If a duty is clear, the dangers surrounding it are irrelevant.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.

I never have been insecure, because I see what a waste it is. I know there is a solution to insecurity. I don't tend to be thrown by problems that don't have solutions. And insecurity has a wealth of alternatives.

The greatest threat facing humanity is a radical Islamist regime meeting up with nuclear weapons.

Ninety percent of the cases of polio are in security-vulnerable areas.