“And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself.”

“He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything.”

“What have I done, Obie?"Obie flung his hand in the air, the gesture encompassing all the rotten things that had occur under Archie's command, at Archie's direction. The ruined kids, the capsized hopes. Renault last fall and poor Tubs Casper and all the others including even the faculty. Like Brother Eugene."You know what you've done, Archie. I don't need to draw up a list-""You blame me for everything, right, Obie? You and Carter and all the others. Archie Costello, the bad guy. The villain. Archie, the bastard. Trinity would be such a beautiful place without Archie Costello. Right, Obie? But it's not me, Obie, it's not me....""Not you?" Obie cried, fury gathering in his throat, his chest, his guts. "What the hell do you mean, not you? This could have been a beautiful place to be, Archie. A beautiful time for all of us. Christ, who else, if not you?""Do you really want to know who?""Okay, who then?" Impatient with his crap, the old Archie crap."It's you, Obie. You and Carter and Bunting and Leon and everybody. But especially you, Obie. Nobody forced you to do anything, buddy. Nobody made you join the Vigils. Nobody twisted your arm to make you secretary of the Vigils. Nobody pain you to keep a notebook with all that crap about the students, all their weaknesses, soft points. The notebook made your job easier, didn't it, Obie? And what was your job? Finding the victims. You found them, Obie. You found Renault and Tubs Casper and Gendreau-the first one, remember, when we were sophomores?-how you loved it all, didn't you Obie?" Archie flicked a finger against the metal of the car, and the ping was like a verbal exclamation mark. "Know what, Obie? You could have said no anytime, anytime at all. But you didn't...." Archie's voice was filled with contempt, and he pronounced Obie's name as if it were something to be flushed down a toilet."Oh, I'm an easy scapegoat, Obie. For you and everybody else at Trinity. Always have been. But you had free choice, buddy. Just like Brother Andrew always says in Religion. Free choice, Obie, and you did the choosing....”

“She didn't want to look ahead to the days and the months and the years with him. Here, now, in this room, it was all right, but later? Again, time couldn't stop. And she saw at last that time only stopped when you were dead...Time was always moving and nothing could stay the same, everything was always changing, for better or for worse. And you had to change with time, with the seasons and the years, or you would be dead too, although your heart would continue to beat.”

“What could he say? After the phone calls and the beating. After the desecration of his locker. The silent treatment. Pushed downstairs. What they did to Goober, to Brother Eugene. What guys like Archie and Janza did to the school. What they would do to the world when they left Trinity.”

“Sometimes I wake up at night in a panic. Wondering: What will my life be like? And sometimes I even wonder: Who am I? What am I doing here, on this planet, in this city, in this house? And it gives me the shivers, makes me panic.”

“Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?”