“He was already intuiting that attachment - if only to a squirt gun - made him vulnerable.”

“...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.”

“Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.”

“People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment.”

“But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were all about following the rules.”

“At only ten a.m., Edgar found himself already eyeing the Doritos on the counter. One thing he hadn't anticipated about the 'home office' was Snack Syndrome; lately his mental energies divided evenly between his new calling (worrying about money, which substituted neatly for earning it) and not stuffing his face.”

“That boy hardly needed a mask when his naked face was already impenetrable.”