“I guess that's the story of life: what you most fear never happens, but what you most yearn for never happens either. This is the difference between life and fiction. I suppose it's a good trade-off. But I'm not sure.”

“You never really knew for sure what was going to happen next in life, Duncan thought. That was part of the pain and the fun. You never really knew the end of the story until it happened.”

“Life is rarely about what happened; it's mostly about what we think happened.”

“I suppose that's what happens when you make other people's lives miserable: life gets miserable back at you.”

“Dios," he said, addressing himself to Jace. "What happened to you, brother? You look as if a pack of wolves tried to tear you apart." "That's either a shockingly good guess," said Jace, "or you heard about what happened.”

“Lots of women read fiction. Most men don't. Women read fiction written by women and by men. Most men don't. If a man opens a novel,. he likes to have a masculine name on the cover; it's reassuring somehow. You never know what might happen to that external genitalia if you immerse yourself in imaginary doings concocted by someone with the goods on the inside.”