“My love for her was close to piety. You may think it strange that I should use this word, with its religious connotation, to describe my feeling towards a woman. But even now I believeand I believe...”

“I am an inconsistent creature. Perhaps it is the pressure of my past, and not my own perverse mind, that has made me into this contradictory being. I am all too well aware of this fault in myself. ...”

“But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ide...”

“But do you imagine theres a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a bad person'? Youll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are...”

“To tell you the truth, I used to consider it a disgrace to be found ignorant by other people. But now, I find that I am not ashamed of knowing less than others, and I'm less inclined to force mysel...”

“I am a lonely man," he said again that evening. "And is it not possible that you are also a lonely person? But I am an older man, and I can live with my loneliness, quietly. You are young, and it m...”

“You teach me now how cruel you've been - cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yoursel...”

“I knew they would kill me when they found out, but He struggled for words, releasing a sharp breath. I think I realized that I would rather die because I betrayed them, than live because I betrayed...”

“Ah," she cried, "you look so cool." Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table.You always look so cool," she repeated.She h...”

“Delayed gratification hints that something terrible is going to happen, and then delays the resolution. Its that interval between the promise of something awful and it actually happening, where sus...”

“I came running down the stairs that morning, like it was Christmas. My parents were already up. In my family, presents never waited; they were there upon waking. Our family has a problem with what ...”

“Delayed gratification is what makes a man.”

“The ego is like a clever monkey, which can co-opt anything, even the most spiritual practices, so as to expand itself. (155)”

“Ego like bile over taste buds. Get it out or hold it in. It's the suspension will drive you nuts, churn your gut.”

“War within ourselves is always a prelude to war outside ourselves. All war starts within our own hearts. When our egos are inflated or our desires insatiable, we go to war with the other for the sa...”