“What about my rights? What about a person's privacy? Did all that just go to hell after 9/11?”

“What was it about not knowing a person that allowed you to wonder whether she might be the answer to all your problems?”

“I figured anybody who talked about church as much as she did was using it a little like cocaine anyhow.”

“Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.”

“Maybe learning to be human was about learning to live in pain, not trying to figure out how to live pain-free. (156)”

“A man like Kappler might become angriest, most detached, even sickest at those times his psychiatrist edges closest to the truths about his life. The rage and even the psychosis has to be seen for what it is: the flamethrower of a fortress under siege. Pleasantries, humor, and easy exchanges might be clues that no real work is being done. There can be no retreat on the psychiatrist's part. One patient with a psychotic illness has written: "the doctor has to feel sure he has the right to break into the illness, just as a parent knows he has the right to walk into a baby's room, no matter what the baby feels about it. The doctor has to know he's doing the right thing...some people go through life with vomit on their lips. You can feel their terrible hunger but they defy you to feed them.”

“But that's the hardest part of healing.'What?'Realizing there's no one to hate.”