“If isolation is the furnace of transformation, I could be ashes by now.”

“The brain is a furnace./Is transformed and transforms.”

“I could not separate our fates now any more than I could sort the blood from the ash. We are tied together by our love of the same girl.”

“Forgive me," Ash murmured, and I heard the faintest of tremors beneath his voice. "But I can't... I won't... give her up. Not now, when I've just found her."-Ash”

“Nick glowered at Ash. "Are we through now, Dad? Can I go play with my friends if I promise to be a good boy? I'll even try and make it home by curfew." Ash laughed evilly. "Oh, absolutely, son. In fact, here come your new playmates now.”

“That last afternoon in Henry's hotel room was for me like a white-hot furnace. Before, I had only white heat of the mind and of the imagination; now it is of the blood. Sacred completeness. I come out dazed in the mellow spring evening and I think, now I would not mind dying.”