“He is hearing the uncertain passage of a broken heart, bruising itself again and again on the unjust stones.Such a heart might stumble to either bank of the stream to escape the rush of time. To the side of light, or to the infinity of dark. To virtue, or to evil. Right here, in the river of his life, curves a pool of experience where the heart baptises itself. Either it rises, dark and closed and formidable, or it thrusts forward like an opening hibiscus, its five extravagant petals still dripping tinctures of blood.”

“...until men desire to control their own passions, evil has rooted itself in their hearts and darkness will rise again.”

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”

“claimed to be the man who wrote a certain book – what was its name again?""Inkheart." Fenoglio rubbed his aching back. "Its title is Inkheart because it's about a manwhose wicked heart is as black as ink, filled with darkness and evil. I still like the title.”

“Your heart is like a great river after a long spell of rain, spilling over its banks. All signposts that once stood on the ground are gone, inundated and carried away by that rush of water. And still the rain beats down on the surface of the river. Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.”

“[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.”