“His lies were so exquisite I almost wept.”

“almost exquisite, the slight madness”

“After years of pretending at emotions, he'd grown to appreciate their mystery, their chaos and randomness. Sometimes they were predictable, one-dimensional, almost stupid - other times they were so confounding, complex, and exquisite that he was convinced humans really were as special as they thought themselves to be.”

“That day, so many wept. Young and old, friends and strangers, black and white, men and women wept. The angels wept. Jesus wept. Coach Gabe Lewis, though, with his eyes on the lilies, shed not a single tear.”

“He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.”

“As for my needs, they had dwindled as it were to my dimensions and become, if I may say so, of so exquisite a quality as to exclude all thought of succour.”