John P.

“Joseph also administered the new, secret rite of the Second Anointing for chosen couples upstairs at the store. He sealed polygamous marriages in the second-floor office, never revealing them to the Saints at large. Smith and Brigham Young kept coded records of these events, sometimes using pseudonyms. In his diary, Smith occasionally called himself “Baurak Ale.” To record his marriages, Young might write “saw E. Partridge,” a code which meant “[s]ealed [a]nd [w]ed Emily Partridge,” or “ME L. Beaman,” which would mean “married for eternity Louisa Beaman.” One of Joseph’s plural wives, Willard Richards’s sister Rhoda, lived in the store, which was also the site of Brigham Young’s soon-to-be-famous, botched seduction of British teenager Martha Brotherton.”
― Alex Beam, American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church

“The fact is, my dear friend, love of the truth is higher and purer than any other. The truth, however poor and naked it may be, is more lovable and more holy than any sumptuous, dressed-up falsehood. And thus every time I’m able remove some flounce or frill from you, my heart leaps in my breast and a triumphal crown girds my head. Blessed be that philosophy that teaches us that though we be mortal, weak and unhappy, we can be great in equality, liberty and love!”
― Ippolito Nievo, Le confessioni d'un Italiano

“In front of the reviewing stand, she presented Joseph with a twenty-six-star, handcrafted silk American flag, sewn for the occasion by the ladies of Nauvoo. Then the officers, the honored guests, and the twenty members of the Legion marching band assembled for the procession to the temple site. Joseph had assigned special places on the reviewing stand to the Sauk Indian chief Keokuk and his entourage, who had crossed over from Iowa to partake in the festivities.”
― Alex Beam, American Crucifixion: The Murder of Joseph Smith and the Fate of the Mormon Church

“What a mess the world is in,” cried the man, reading the news in his paper. “It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game