“She remembered me.' This was his worst weakness, his most toxic drug.”

“His eyes were the brightest, most unnatural blue I had ever seen, a toxic cerulean.”

“I remember, in hot floods, the way he slept, still as death, with his face washed flat, stony as a carved tomb and exquisite. His weakness and his ravening bitter needs were terrible, and beautiful, and irresistible as an earthquake. He scalded or smothered anyone he needed, but his needing and the hurt that it caused me were the most life I have ever had. Remember what a poor thing I have always been and forgive me.”

“The Republic's most wanted criminal is just a boy, sitting before me, suddenly vulnerable, laying all his weaknesses out for me to see.”

“Everywhere man blames nature and fate yet his fate is mostly but the echo of his character and passion, his mistakes and his weaknesses.”

“For the sorry truth is that in this most pragmatic land, the purist is generally his own worst enemy.”