“Don't never participate in no bad scenes, he reminded himself; that was his motto in life.”

“Dr. Murray points to the Nazarite system as what he calls an external scaffolding supporting human efforts at righteousness, reminding the participant that he is set apart. Christ, he said, needed no external reminder that the Father was His joy and that wine was not, that He was Life and was wholly Other from death, that He bore on Himself the shame that long hair but vaguely pointed to.”

“he tried to remind himself , don't think about her! don't think about her! he said to himself, i am sick with compassion”

“Don't care, he reminded himself. Because if he didn't care she couldn't hurt him.”

“Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm? Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.”

“Everyone deserved the chance to be redeemed, and Michael had gone his whole life never having it. He never got to redeem himself with his father. He never got to redeem himself with his brother. And if he was trying to redeem himself now for what he'd done ro her, then she was going to let him, even if it left her vulnerable.”