“I tried to avoid it coming to that, but it was bound to happen...My attraction to you has tested my self-control and my concentration.”

“The ideal of self-control is supreme. This life is a test—is a test—is a test. You have not passed until you have endured to the end and are dead. You will be tried every day of your life, whether you know it or not. Today, we are all bombarded by stimuli toward the loosening of moral controls. The provocation is enormous. You must practice self-control and have a strong repertoire of such abilities, so that when stress comes, you can cope. Mercifully, the Lord permits us small doses of evil to practice our controls on before we are hit with real temptation, but then it comes.”

“Sam: “You—you greatly overestimate my self-control.”Grace: “I’m not looking for self-control.”

“I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. ”

“My conscious self would do anything to avoid people with cheating tendencies, but my subconscious keeps trying to recreate home and keeps bringing me back to people who recreate my childhood.”

“When it happens, this is what happens: I shoot myself.Not, you know, my self self. I shoot my future self. He steps out of a time machine, introduces himself as Charles Yu. What else am I supposed to do? I kill him. I kill my own future.”