“He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.”

“I wanted to go to him then? Not all of me but the same part he'd just hurt. I don't understand this pull, still. I think it must be a really dangerous physics, the gravity of wound to fist. You can see it happen to the other animals. When a hunter or trapper begins kicking at an alligator, its body curls to accommodate the withdrawing foot.”

“I read somewhere, once, that crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity.”

“Closing down in the midst of pain is a denial of a man's true nature. A superior man is free in feeling and action, evenamidst great pain and hurt. If necessary, a man should live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. He shouldlearn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.”

“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.”

“It hurts," Nellie said."I know," Reagan said. "No pain, no gain.""Do you think they made that expression up for bullet wounds?”