“What's been tried once had been tried once before... and before... and before...”

“Dead. Never been that before. Not even once.”

“Of course he wouldn't hesitate before trying something that had never been done before. He was Vlad Tepesh. How could he fail?”

“That night, before he tried to sleep, Louie prayed. He had prayed only once before in his life, in childhood, when his mother was sick and he had been filled with a rushing fear that he would lose her. That night on the raft, in words composed in his head, never passing his lips, he pleaded for help.”

“The cost of oblivius daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realigment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.Her reverie, once rich in plausible details, had become a passing silliness before the hard mass of the actual.It was difficult to come back.”

“When one had once suffered a great hurt, there was always a weakness afterward, a vulnerability where there had been wholeness and strength before - and innocence.”