“It looks like a group of evil f*cking gnomes came in here and decided to do the opposite of whatever they did for the shoemaker.”

“Clearing his throat, he rumbled, "Miss Darling, a word if you please.""Sesquipedalian," she said, keeping her back towards him.The strange response momentarily stunned him. "Pardon?"Turning around, she leaned against the counter and grinned at him, “You asked for a word and I gave you one. It means ‘many syllabled’ and while it’s exceedingly pretentious it is a lot of fun to say. Sesquipedalian; it tangles up the tongue and then just falls right off.“Or perhaps you would prefer a different word?” she continued guilelessly and he was completely charmed by her. “Tittle, which is the little dot over i’s and j’s; or Ornithopter, an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings; Tuatha De Danan Lora or Expector Patronum?”“Now you’re just making words up,” he grinned, and realized he had missed talking to her.”

“I left little packages in front of the doors; the people looked for them in the morning, and I knew, in some bit of a way, it bucked them up.I did as much as I could, but it weren't like I could get everyone something every night. That seemed like the cruelest part. I tried not to think 'bout the people that woke up and rushed to the door and didn't find nothing; it made my chest hurt.”

“The notion that evil is non-rational is a more significant claim for Eagleton than at first appears, because he is (in this book [On Evil] as in others of his recent 'late period' prolific burst) anxious to rewrite theology: God (whom he elsewhere tells us is nonexistent, but this is no barrier to his being lots of other things for Eagleton too, among them Important) is not to be regarded as rational: with reference to the Book of Job Eagleton says, 'To ask after God's reasons for allowing evil, so [some theologians] claim, is to imagine him as some kind of rational or moral being, which is the last thing he is.' This is priceless: with one bound God is free of responsibility for 'natural evil'—childhood cancers, tsunamis that kill tens of thousands—and for moral evil also even though 'he' is CEO of the company that purposely manufactured its perpetrators; and 'he' is incidentally exculpated from blame for the hideous treatment meted out to Job.”

“When shall we break into the jail, then?" John asked."Midnight. The guard changes then, and you'll fair certain look less conspicuous in that crowd.""So you think I look like a guard? I'll take that nicely." He took a drink of his beer, his eyes shining at me over the brim.I flicked my eyes over him. "Brutish and stupid? Yes, you look quite like a guard.”

“Rob looked a little shocked. "Don't you look at me like that," I snapped at him. "Just because I can't trim a beard don't mean I can't swear.""Like a sailor," he added. "I've never heard so many curses in my whole life. All combined.”

“We do what we do because there's something we can do about it. Things like 'how long' and 'what if' aren't part of that. It's about the hope, not the horror.”