“Stop moving around.''Your opponent" --Daniel panted--"isn't going to stand still and just let you hit him.' He held his boxing mitts out in front of him, welcoming a new attack.He would if he knew what was good for him.”

“The ground was so far below him, he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He would wake up in the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke in the instant before you hit the ground.”

“The opponent strikes you on your cheek, and you strike him on the heart by your amazing spiritual audacity in turning the other cheek. You wrest the offensive from him by refusing to take his weapons, by keeping your own, and by striking him in his conscience from a higher level. He hits you physically, and you hit him spiritually.”

“You can let your breath out," she said, moving around to the side of the tub. She gave him the bottle again. "here, have another drink. I'm all done. You're going to live.""I knew I was going to survive the injury," he said lowly. His eyes held hers. "I didn't know if I was going to survive your attentions.”

“and when he saw the kid standing there looking looking down at him he held out to him his bloodied hands as if in accusation and then clapped them to his ears and cried out what it seemed he himself would not hear, a howl of such outrage as to stitch a caesura in the pulsebeat of the world.”

“I’ve loved him since I’ve known him, Mrs. Daniels. He just finally stopped fighting.”