“You tell a man the truth about himself and, well, they find they have trouble accepting it.”

“Poo" Manchee barks quielty to himself. "Poo, poo, poo.""Just have yer stupid poo and quit yapping about it.”

“Noise ain't Truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out.”

“Four lines, and the world went quiet.I'm sorry for telling everyone about your mum, read the first line.I miss being your friend, read the second.Are you okay? read the third.I see you, read the fourth, with the I underlined about a hundred times.”

“As long as I hold it as long as I use it, the knife lives, lives in order to take life, but it has to be commanded, it has to have me to tell it to kill, and it wants to, it wants to plunge and thrust and cut and stab and gouge, but I have to want it to as well, my will has to join with its will. I'm the one who allows it and I'm the one responsible.”

“You think I tell you stories to teach you lessons? the monster said. You think I have coming walking out of time and earth itself to teach you a lesson in niceness?”

“Men do monstrous things but if you call a man a monster you have absolved yourself of blame. You don't have to think that you might ever do these things. I don't think that's true”