“In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.”

“Lucas hated the word. It was so easy to say, but it could honestly cut someone in half if they thought for a second that they were. Lucas was a confident man, but with his dyslexia, he never felt like he was smart. Fallon had never made him feel like he was less of a man; she always treated him like he was the smartest man in the room, until now. Now she had called him it.”

“Fear! Fear again, for the first time since his 'teens. Fear, that he thought he would never know any more. Fear that no weapon, no jeopardy, no natural cataclysm, has ever been able to inspire until now. And now here it is running icily through him in the hot Chinese noon. Fear for the thing he loves, the only fear that can ever wholly cow the reckless and the brave. ("Jane Brown's Body")”

“The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until now.”

“…in that moment, as he saw and smelled how irresistible its effect was and how with lightning speed it spread and made captives of the people all around him—in that moment his whole disgust for humankind rose up again within him and completely soured his triumph, so that he felt not only no joy, but not even the least bit of satisfaction. What he had always longed for—that other people should love him—became at the moment of his achievement unbearable, because he did not love them himself, he hated them. And suddenly he knew that he had never found gratification in love, but always only in hatred—in hating and in being hated.”

“And as horrible as that felt in this moment, it was almost a relief. Because he didn't need to worry about loss if he never bothered to love anyone.”