“I felt sorry that he had suffered so long in the hospital, sorry that even in his last minutes our mindless technology had so rudely interrupted his transition”

“And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the window.”

“I'm sorry I'm so pathetic," he thought, and then realized he had also said it.Beth laughed, so lightly and so kindly that Denis felt it in his chest, not his stomach.Can I tell you a secret?"Yes, tell me all your secrets Denis kept to himself.Beth leaned in, whispered: "All boys are pathetic.”

“I am sorry,' he whispers. 'I am sorry I treated you so ill. I thought only to protect Duval.''It was not I who was poisoning him,' I say.'No, but you had stolen his heart and I was afraid you would rip it from his chest when you left.”

“For the first time in my life, I felt sorry for Jesus. Sorry that the miracles ascribed to him hadn’t actually made a difference. Sorry that we were all alone in a universe where even our fathers would get us nailed to a tree if they were so inclined, or cut our throats if so commanded—see under Isaac, another unfortunate Jewish shmuck.”

“He walked in and fell to his knees in front of me. “I’m so sorry, Abby. I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his head in my lap.”