“Were built of contradictions, all of us. Its those opposing forces that give us strength, like an arch, each block pressing the next. Give me a man whose parts are all aligned in agreement and Ill ...”

“There is something brittle in me that will break before it bends. Perhaps if the [the enemy] had brought a smaller army I might have had the sense to run. But he overdid it.”

“There is no sound more annoying than the chatter of a child, and none more sad than the silence they leave when they are gone.”

“Sometimes I wished I could cut away old memories and let the wind take them. If a sharp knife could pare away the weakness of those days, I would slice until nothing but the hard lessons remained.”

“I want her beyond reason. I need to own, consume, worship, devour. What I've made of her in my mind cannot live in flesh.”

“When you've committed yourself to violence it takes an almost inhuman effort to stop short. It's one of those things that once you've started need to be finished, rather like coitus, interrupting t...”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”

“The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.”

“Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.”