“Always the bridesmaid , never the bride." Always the godfather, never the god".”

“Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.”

“To the grim poor there need be no pourquoi tale about where evil arises; it just arises; it always is. One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her--is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil...?”

“The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.”

“He knew about being alone. The weather was always cold there.”

“Thanks to our artists, we pretend well, living under canopies of painted clouds and painted gods, in halls of marble floors across which the sung Masses paint hope in deep impatsi of echo. We make of the hollow world a fuller, messier, prettier place, but all our inventions can't create the one thing we require: to deserve any fond attention we might accidentally receive, to receive any fond attention we don't in the course of things deserve. We are never enough to ourselves because we can never be enough to another. Any one of us walks into any room and reminds its occupant that we are not the one they most want to see. We are never the one. We are never enough.”

“Well, the family always was bright, and brightness, as you know, decays brilliantly.”