Цитаты из книги «Гимн Лейбовицу», страница 2

Он ошибался, но пятнадцать лет все-таки пропали втуне, в вместе ними - вся любовь и мука, вложенные в копию.

Если хочешь управлять мыслью, насколько это вообще возможно, следует приказывать повиноваться лишь тем указаниям, которые хоть как-то обоснованны.

Он не мог проверить правдивость этих слухов, но считать их ложными у него не было оснований.

Через день после своего назначения брат Джерис сообщил брату Франциску о своем решении: ему надлежит оставить ребяческие забавы и приняться за мужскую работу. Монах покорно свернул свой драгоценный лист, уложил его для сохранности между тяжелыми досками, поместил на полку и стал в свое свободное время изготавливать клеенчатые абажуры.

Sincere – that was the hell of it. From a distance, one’s adversaries seemed fiends, but with a closer view, one saw the sincerity and it was as great as one’s own. Perhaps Satan was the sincerest of the lot.

“Quite incidentally, the letter will be safeguarded. We shall affix to it the Noli molestare, excommunicating anyone who waylays the bearer.”

Brother Francis murmured his thanks for such insurance against highwaymanship; he did not deem it fitting to add that the robber would be unable to read the warning or understand the penalty.

"You know what, Pat? – they'd . . . together . . . rather get nailed on it, but not alone . . . when they bleed . . . want company. Because . . . Because why it is. Because why it is the same as Satan wants Man full of Hell. I mean the same as Satan wants Hell full of Man."

"This Order has had abbots of gold, abbots of cold tough steel, abbots of corroded lead, and none of them was able, although some were abler than others, some saints even. The gold got battered, the steel got brittle and broke, and the corroded lead got stamped into ashes by Heaven. Me, I've been lucky enough to be quicksilver; I spatter, but I run back together somehow. I feel another spattering coming on, though, Brother, and I think it's for keeps this time. What are you made of, son? What's to be tried?"

"Puppy dog tails. I'm meat, and I'm scared, Reverend Father."

"Steel screams when it's forged, it gasps when it's quenched. It creaks when it goes under load. I think even steel is scared, son."

"Wait, Benjamin. Take your goat, or I'll give it to a peasant. I won't have it wandering around the abbey and bleating into the church."

"It's not a goat," the hermit said crossly. "It's the beast which your prophet saw, and it was made for a woman to ride. I suggest you curse it and drive it into the desert. You notice, however, that it divideth the hoof and cheweth the cud."