“A gun is psychologically a penis-substitute and a symbol of power: the age-range of toy-shop clientele begins at about six or seven, rises sharply just before puberty and declines soon after the discovery of the phallus and its promise of power. From then on, guns are for kids and for the effete freaks and misfits who must seek psycho-orgasmic relief by shooting pheasants.”

“She was beginning to stir questions in me that I'd spent all my life refusing to ask, since the day I had looked down from the window at the broken body of the schoolboy on the flagstones a long way below, while a master hurried from the cloisters with his black gown flapping in the winter wind, to see what had happened: the day when I was suddenly old enough to understand that I had a choice. I could either do what that other boy had done, or I could spend the rest of my life outside society, where it was safe”

“A cat is a responsibility after all. And feeding and keeping and caring about a stupid fat cat isn't much, isn't much in the entirety of what counts for being a person and the huge range of what people do,but it is something. It is something and it's something that's warm and that I still have.”

“He wasn't anti-gun really—he just wasn't pro-being-shot-at.”

“Those corrupted by the pursuit of power, despite another's attempt at unspoiled love, cannot be rescued from the darkness that devours the soul”

“Are you ready for my love gun?” he says.Uh-oh. “What’s a love gun? Is that a sex toy?”“No,” he says. “I’m talking about my penis.”“Oh,” I say. “Then yes. Fire away”

“They rise highest who lift as they go.”