“If I could slam the door, I would. If I could walk to another room, I would. The best I can do is turn and head for the far corner of my cell. In prison, even goodbyes are beyond my control.”

“The sting of her abandonment had not lessened through the years, and I suspected it would never go away. Occasionally, I could see agony in her eyes, the shadows that flickered in the background. If I could, I'd take her pain and make it my own. I'd swallow it like a bitter pill and live with the consequences.”

“I could quote enough Nietzsche to bore someone into a coma, solve mathematical problems so beautiful they'd make Pythagoras cry; I could talk so much bullshit the listener didn't know if I was coming or going, but I had gotten to know Rickie well enough to realize that I had no idea how a woman's mind worked.”

“She had never been to college, and I often wondered where her life would have led under different circumstances. She might have been a physician or an attorney, a CEO or a professor. Instead, she was stuck in Silvington, Indiana, married to a construction worker, and trying anything she could think of to save her child.”

“She didn't want me; she wanted all of me. I didn't mind saying it. My girlfriend scared the crap out of me.”

“Truth may start out timid, but it finishes bold.”

“Had I known then what I know now, I would have clung to him. I would have looked him in the eyes to see that spark of mischief, that undying intelligence that belied his gruff exterior. If I'd known the inevitable, I would have said everything I felt in my heart and soul. I would have told him thank you for being my father. I would have said that if I'm ever going to be a good man, it's going to be because of the way he'd raised me... ...I would have told him I loved him. But I didn't. I didn't because I didn't know. I didn't even say goodnight. Or goodbye.”