“Every family is a regular little cult.”

“Here's one night when I control the chaos. I participate with the doom I can't control. I'm dancing with the inevitable, and I survive....My regular little dress rehearsal...the day I finally meet Death, the two of us will be old, long-lost friends. Me and Death, separated at birth.”

“There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

“Nobody wants to worship you if you have the same problems, the same bad breath and messy hair and hangnails, as a regular person. You have to be everything regular people aren’t. Where they fail, you have to go all the way. Be what people are too afraid to be. Become whom they admire. People shopping for a messiah want quality. Nobody is going to follow a loser. When it comes to choosing a savior, they won't settle for just a human being.”

“With every lecture, you’re forced to look again at every choice you’ve made over the lesson-by-lesson chain of your entire life. And after all these years, you see how little you have to work with, how limited your life and education have been. How scant was your courage and curiosity. Not to mention your expectations.”

“Every evening, I died, and every evening, I was born.”

“Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be. Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice. Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.”