“He lost a finger. A finger! Why, I once had a Sherpa who guided me across the Himalayas with his small intestines hanging out of his gut -- in winter!”

“Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife.”

“His were the eyes of one who had seen too much suffering to take suffering too seriously.”

“Is it any wonder the power this man held over me - this man who did not run from his demons like most of us do, but embraced them as his own, clutching them to his heart in a choke-hold grip. He did not try to escape them by denying them or drugging them or bargaining with them. He met them where they lived, in the secret place most of us keep hidden. Warthrop was Warthrop down to the marrow of his bones, for his demons defined him; they breathed the breath of life into him; and without them, he would go down, as most of us do, into the purgatorial fog of a life unrealized.”

“Though I understand the theology behind it, the image does not bring me peace; it makes me feel sorry for the lion. It strips him of his essence, the fundamental part of his being. A lion that does not behave as a lion i snot a lion. It isn't even the lion's opposite. It's a mockery of a lion.”

“He knew the truth. Yes, my dear child, he would undoubtedly tell a terrified toddler tremulously seeking succor, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

“I'd walk right up to him and blow his brains out.”