“Max can’t help it,” Eddie says. “The teenaged brain isn’t wired for empathy. It’s designed to look forward.” “If you heard him, why didn’t you say something?” “Nothing to be gained. There are articles about it.” Eddie pours himself a cup of coffee. “Think of Max as a butterfly emerging from his cocoon. At this point in its development, the butterfly is too busy to think of anything but emerging. It’s an all-consuming task. It can’t develop other skills until later. Max will learn sympathy later on.” “I see. He’ll become a caring human being once he’s stopped emerging?” “Exactly.” “Or else he’ll turn into a serial killer by the age of twenty.”

“Thanks for . . . what you remember. And what you don’t. It’s not nothing. It’s a lot.”

“What kind of religion would celebrate its High Holidays by reading about a biblical figure as heartless as Abraham—a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia, in Iona’s opinion—who nearly killed his son because he heard voices in his head and was rescued from the dirty deed only by other voices?”

“You’re not really afraid you’ll hurt him. You’re afraid because you believe it was wrong even to think it. But having a thought, even an awful one, is different from acting on it. All the difference in the world.”

“Talk about anything long enough, and you cut it down to size.”

“Why was I standing on the street when the window feel out of the building? Why did the bus run over me? Because it was my turn in the barrel, that's why.”

“You move forward. You face up to your challenges. You don't retreat. You're young, and sometimes you'll wish you could. But don't.”