“The killer walked with a light step that could be achieved only by someone not weighed down with a conscience, and went out into the night's embrace.”

“I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.”

“The perfect killer has no conscience.”

“I bent over her and kissed her lips. She embraced me, and we remained like that as the light from the candle sputtered then went out.”

“but it was humanly good to be touched too, to be alone with someone at the secret feast that went all the way back to Adam and Eve. You looked at each other and felt just how old the contract was, the warm-faced commitment to the adventure, the stepping together out of the light into the rewarding darkness.”

“There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.”