“These things you did were like prayers; you did them and you hoped they would save you. And for the most part they did. Or something did; you could tell by the fact that you were still alive.”

“...what was important, what mattered, was not the fact of being afraid, but what you did, the choices you made, when you were afraid. And maybe that was something to do with being alive--or staying dead.”

“It was from feeling oneself that one had reached the last barrier, that it was horrible, but that it could not be otherwise; that there was no escape for you; that you never could become a different man; that even if time and faith were still left you to change into something different you would most likely not wish to change; or if you did wish to, even then you would do nothing; because perhaps in reality there was nothing for you to change into.”

“You were supposed to have hope, right? You were supposed to respect its power and hold on. And so I did. I held, and held, and let hope fill me. But as the days went on, it seemed I could be holding for a long, long time. Hope could be the most powerful thing or the most useless”

“There were always people to snatch at you, and it would never occur to them that they were eating you up. They did that without tasting.”

“Among the problems with shame was that it in fact did not make you shorter or quieter or less visible. You just felt like you were.”