“Pain is very often a maimed creature without a mouth.”

“The world didn’t like to look at the dark underside very often. But that didn’t change the ugliness; it only ensured that those who perpetuated the ugliness were left alone to kill and maim and rape.”

“OPEN WITH CARE. TRIPPLE G RANCH IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE, MAIMING, OR EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL DEATHS.”

“Noble disappointment, noble self-denial are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maim; another to maim yourself and stay without.”

“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.”

“To deprive a gregarious creature of companionship is to maim it, to outrage its nature. The prisoner and the cenobite are aware that the herd exists beyond their exile; they are an aspect of it. But when the herd no longer exists, there is, for the herd creature, no longer entity, a part of no whole; a freak without a place. If he cannot hold on to his reason, then he is lost indeed; most utterly, most fearfully lost, so that he becomes no more than the twitch in the limb of a corpse.”