“There's a purity to the struggle to reach a peak. You leave your world behind and take only what you need. For a creature like me there is nothing closer to redemption.”

“As a child there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one...each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment.”

“It is purity of spirit that will keep corruption from the flesh”

“When you take a woman away from her man, what you get is a woman who can be taken away from her man.”

“This is where the wise man turns away. This is where the holy kneel and call on God. These are the last miles, my brothers. Don't look to me to save you. Don't think I will not spend you. Run if you have the wit. Pray if you have the soul. Stand your ground if courage is yours. But don't follow me.Follow me, and I will break your heart.”

“And what makes us human is that sometimes we snap. And in that moment of release we're closer to gods than we know.”

“So what was that about?" Makin asked, striding up behind."They shot my idiot," I said.”