“The language of sin was universal, the original Esperanto.”

“When you think about it, most of the good ideas came along to make sin a whole lot easier.”

“He understood that the ghost existed first and foremost within his own head. That maybe ghosts always haunted minds, not places. If he wanted to take a shot at it, he’d have to turn the barrel against his own temple.”

“Taking a thing apart is always faster than putting something together. This is true of everything except marriage.”

“Who knows what may lie around the next corner? There may be a window somewhere ahead. It may look out on a field of sunflowers.”

“I didn't know the inner me was hungry," I said to Art. "That's because it already starved to death. ”

“The mad sometimes drilled holes in their own heads to let the demons out. To relieve the pressure of thoughts they could no longer bear. Jude understood the impulse. Each beat of his heart was a fresh and staggering blow felt in the nerves behind his eyes and in his temples. Punishing evidence of life.”