“Life is terrorism, so spare me your indignation. Life is one big infiltration of our secure defenses. Some people put bombs on buses and blow them up: those are terrorists. Some people speak to you and their words blow you up: what would you call those people? Life is a condemned cell. . . . That's the only way to protect yourself . . . to understand that you're always under sentence of death and to try to get a temporary remission.”

“If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.”

“But now what? Is this a ticket to a new understanding of my life, or a bomb that's going to blow up everything?Consider one more possibility: that you remain essentially the same person you were, neither new nor destroyed.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world, son. Those who save lives, and those who take lives.""And what of those who protect and defend? Those who save lives by taking lives?""That's like trying to stop a storm by blowing harder. Ridiculous. You can't protect by killing.”

“Some people try to tell you the things you want in life are out of your grasp, while others lift you up on their shoulders and help you reach them. I may not know a lot, but I prefer to fill my life with people who let me climb on top of their shoulders, not people who try to keep me planted on the ground.”

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.”