“It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.”

“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.”

“It doesn't matter how big the body, it's what you do with it.”

“Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.”

“They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.”

“Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he'd always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.”

“...pain reaches a certain point and does not get worse but remains in all its intensity and you can survive it.”