“Being selective is self-protective.”

“We all have a little voice in our heads that talks to us.”

“We tell ourselves that we lie to protect others, but the self usually comes out looking damn good in the process.”

“Among the earliest forms of human self-awareness was the awareness of being meat.”

“The main shift, you see, is from placing self at the center of our thoughts to putting others there. It is-what do you say?-a paradox that the more we can focus our thoughts on the well-being of others, the happier we become. The first one to benefit is oneself. I call this being wisely selfish.”

“...Emma Morley wasn't such a paragon either: pretentious, petulant, lazy, speechifying, judgmental. Self-pitying, self righteous, self-important, all the selfs except self-confident, the quality that she had always needed the most.”

“The season of evil," I echoed. "Protect your soul.”