“What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?”

“Max would conclude, "that's who I want to be. The pope. And I'll do the same thing he does. I'll keep all the goddamn money.”

“Hed meant to forgive his brother, maybe even imagined he had. Hed also meant to learn to trust him, but instead merely fell into the habit of waiting for him to fuck up again.”

“Interesting, Miles thought. Like himself, Father Mark, as a child, had been reassured by the imagined proximity of God, whereas adults, perhaps because they so often were up to no good, took more c...”

“You can't possibly judge your ability to control something until you've experienced the extremes of its capabilities. Do you understand?”

“One of the odd things about middle age...was the strange decisions a man discovers hes made by not really making them.”

“How can I tell anyone that there has always lived within me a rusty sense of disgust-a dull, brackish water that I suspect is my soul?”

“I'll tell you a secret.Old storytellers never die.They disappear into their own story.”

“A secret note is secret. There is no reason to sign it.”