“In my experience, the truly evil are few and good people, with the very best of intentions, often make very bad decisions and get in way over their heads before they know it. People drown, quietly, before our eyes, all the time.”

“The truth is, Bob, that no matter how far or fast you go, the past always follows: an inky, faceless thing tacked to your shoes that only the harshest light can kill, and then just for those few moments when there is nothing but the strongest fire from the brightest sun, breaking over your shoulders, burning that shadow- and your past- to ash.”

“It was, come to think of it, a little like a kinder, gentler Psycho-Dad making one of his command decisions. Exactly the same, only without all the fuss and blood.”

“They call it the drowning instinct. It's when drowning doesn't look like drowning.”

“I doubted I would need my eyes. I drew in the dark, after all.”

“The familiar was usually invisible; how many people really noticed everything they saw?”

“There are those individuals who die for a cause, and we say they have made the ultimate sacrifice. We call them martyrs, and we never doubt their sincerity.Yet many others search their entire lives for something—or someone—worth dying for and this is very different. These are the lonely and the desperate, fearful that their lives have no meaning. They yearn for the bullet, if only someone else will pull the trigger.”