"The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say" (p. 2).

"Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being" (p. 7).

"Once a mother started being dead, and was planted in the ground, what was to say she didn't emerge, eventually, as a broad bean?" (p. 17).

"[Cesare Borgia] was a young brute, one of those handsome men who knock mountains to one side in order to clear the view" (p. 33).

"What keeps a river in its banks but the spirits of the drowned, the titans and Nereids, whose time has passed, and who in shame and righteous humility cover themselves in their watery blanket?" (p. 51).

"Faith is a floor. If you don't work at making it for yourself, you have nothing to walk on" (p. 75).

"It took a highly cultured...