“Some servent with no sense of the symbolic had kept the hinges well-oiled during the years of his absence,as if their marital life had merely been cast into temporary abeyance.”

“All of his life had been about making sure I kept mine.”

“According to his dad's journal, vampires had been through some of the worst epidemics in history. And apparently, during the days of the Black Plague, their biggest complaint had been rotten "food".”

“Some of these walls had been of my own making; my rebellion, my resistance; my arrogance, my need for control. Some had been built around me by the misfortunes of life; my loneliness; my orphaned heart; my fear of rejection. I had kept God at bay, and cheated myself of the warmth of His mercy.”

“He had made a series of foolish decisions in his life. He had not planned well. He had not had courage when he needed it. His decisions had been short sighted. The decisions of his peers had been short sighted. These decisions had been foolish and expedient.”

“How did it happen that now he could see everything so clearly. Something had given him leave to live in the present. Not once in his entire life had he come to rest in the quiet center of himself but had forever cast himself from some dark past he could not remember to a future that did not exist. Not once had he been present for his life. So his life had passed like a dream. Is it possible for people to miss their lives the way one can miss a plane?”