“You're no fun at all, you boys, you do nothing but worry. You need to think on the sunny side o' this. The worst that can happen is that Bethod don't show!''The worst?' Dogman stared at him. 'You sure? What about if Bethod does come, and his Carls kick your wall over like a pile o' turds and kill every last one of us?'Crummock's brow furrowed. He frowned down at the ground. He squinted up at the clouds. 'True,' he said, breaking out in a smile. 'That is worse. You got a fast mind, lad.'Dogman gave a long sigh, and stared down into the valley.”

“Yes.’ He drank it all down and then casually threw the glass at the fireplace. I stared at the fragments. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ He gestured to the broken glass with a sarcastic smile. ‘I surely hope you don’t, because there’s nothing much you can do about it if you do mind.”

“I don't care. He'll only be painting his own feelings for me, and I don't mind if he does that. I wouldn't have him touch me, not for anything. But if he thinks he can do anything with his owlish arty staring, let him stare. He can make as many empty tubes and corrugations out of me as he likes. It's his funeral. He hated you for what you said: that his tubified art is sentimental and self-important. But of course it's true.”

“Bingo pup. It's a lesson best learned early. They're all afraid of us." He strolled over to Derek. "You're trying to be a good kid, aren't you? You think that'll show them they're wrong. So how'd that working out for you? Guess what? They don't care. To them, you're a monster, and nothing you do--or don't do--will change their minds. My advice? Give 'em what they want. It's a short, brutal life." He smiled. "Live it up."Derek stared straight ahead, patiently waiting."He can't hear a word I'm saying, can he?" Liam said."Nope.”

“Watch it." he said at last. "I can make your life miserable." I gave him an icy smile. "You already have, and that's why i've got the advantage. You've done your worst but you haven't seen what i can do yet.”

“The wonderful thing about the human mind is the way it copes when the worst happens. Beyond that worst happening you think there can be nothing, the unimaginable has taken place, and on the other side is death, destruction, the end. But the worst happens and you reel from it, you stagger, the shock is enormous, and then you begin to recover. You rally, you stand up and face it. You get used to it. For what had happen was not the worst, you realize that. the worst was yet to come, was perhaps always yet to come, never would actually come, because if it did, you would know it, that would be reality, and there would be nothing then but to kill yourself. Quickly.”