“She looks at the swings, and I can see shes imagining what theyd look like if the kids werent there. The guilt of this holds her down momentarily. It appears to be there constantly. Never far away,...”

“Sometimes people are beautiful.Not in looks.Not in what they say.Just in what they are.”

“Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.”

“Why cant the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesnt care, I finally answer, and I know Im right. Its like Ive been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask.”

“As we walk back, it feels like the city is engulfing us. Adrenalin still pours through our veins. Sparks flow through to our fingers. We've still been running in the mornings, but the city's differ...”

“...there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing.”

“In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, them vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been dragged instantly f...”

“The whole concept of some stranger making his way down our chimney - not that we had one - suggested burglary more readily than generosity. Any Santa who tried it would have gotten a bullet in his ...”

“Anything was better than nothing. Half-full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering.”

“It is not the pain and the wounds that are the worst. The worst is the humiliation.”

“According to Tobias, women hang around longer because theyre less capable of indignation and better at being humiliated, for what is old age but one long string of indignities? What person of integ...”