“It's hard for a man to know exactly when a woman doesn't trust him anymore. Maybe it's because a women goes on trying to have faith, knowing her faith is important, and so she tries not to identify a particular moment she stops respecting him. Only later can she look back and see a time when something inside her decided.”

“Women, after a certain age, never look at you anymore with absolute faith showing in their eyes. Those candles are for children. Rather, paradoxically, when a women is beginning to have faith in you, she eyes you with doubt, as if she were weighing you in as trustworthy, but against her better judgment.”

“It's not the heart that decides, or still less the brain, but rather it's the voice in the throat that goes ahead into all these risks.”

“To truly try means to accept God's love, his healing, to accept the world can be ugly, but your heart doesn't have to be. It takes courage, Finley the warrior. You haven't held on to your anger and bitterness in search of healing, but as a banner of your hurt. Because it's real and visible and strong, " she said. "But so is God's love and so are those arms he's holding out for you.”

“When I look at you, I still see the son I love more than my own life. But I also see a man who has become so far removed from what matters that his perception is skewed. Family is real, son. A home to settle into—that’s real. People who love you and care about you. You’ve had a phenomenal career, and I’m proud of you. But it’s time to stop basing your worth on championships and endorsement deals. You can’t buy happiness. You can’t earn it. God isn’t counting all the deals you’re racking up—and neither is your family.” He lifted his brow. “And neither is Lucy. For the first time someone’s looking at the person inside—and you have to decide if you’re going to let her in and be the man she needs you to be.” His father turned his head toward a family picture on the mantel. “It’s a risk. But one I’ve never regretted.”

“Can you tell me what happened?"Her lips thinned as she shook her head. "'Tis not a happy tale.""You have me reading a book about a girl who tries to kill an entire town. Anything else at this point would be a pick me up.”

“She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life—her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be.”