The Arm of the Starfish

You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.

If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it.

Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

Rules are made for people, not people for rules,

If you accept any position of authority you have to know when to break or circumvent a rule. It’s the knowing when that’s important.

There always have been and there always will be people who have been corrupted into enjoying any excuse for cruelty.

I can’t do it for love of God, like Tom Tallis, or for heaven’s sake, as Mr. Frost said. But because I love people I have to act according to it—to the fact that I love them.

There’s something wrong about trying to heal with a surgeon’s knife.