“. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.”

“Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.”

“Some men are honorable because of the example set for them, others, choose to be honorable in spite of it”

“It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love.”

“There is sorrow enough in the natural wayFrom men and woman to fill our day;But when we are certain of sorrow in store,Why do we always arrange for more?Brothers & Sisters, I bid you bewareOf giving your heart to a dog to tear.”

“He finally comprehended that the sole impossibility regarding human sorrow is to arrive at some unsurpassable limit to it.”