“He must be an idiot to feel this way, but there's nothing he can do. He doesn't even know if he can manage to speak.”

“He knows the sniper will fire again, but he isn't afraid. At this moment fear doesn't exist. There's no such thing as bravery. There are no heroes, no villains, no cowards. There's what he can do, and what he can't. There's right and wrong and nothing else. The world is binary. Shading will come later.”

“There's so few things men can talk about. If a man doesn't like baseball, then he must like horses, and if he doesn't like either of them, well, I'm in trouble anyway: he don't like girls.”

“He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless.”

“But walking down the stairs feeling each stair carefully and holding to the banister he thought, I must get her away and get her away as soon as I can without hurting her. Because I am not doing too well at this. That I can promise you. But what else can you do? Nothing, he thought. There's nothing you can do. But maybe, as you go along, you will get good at it.”

“As a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing,but does only and wholly what he must do...”