“When all was said, his fate, however ugly it might prove to be, was in his own hands; he was its master.”

“His friends said, "Why do you have that ugly thing hanging there?" and Bull said, "I like it because it's ugly." All his life was in that line.”

“How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.”

“Might have a couple of kinks to work through," Hale admitted then reached for her hand. As soon as he touched her, Kat knew there was no such thing as curses. People make and break their own fortunes--they are the masters of their own fate. And right then Kat wouldn't have changed a thing.”

“Perhaps the most that can be said is that HCM had become a prisoner of his own creation, a fly in amber, unable in his state of declining influence to escape the inexorable logic of a system that sacrificed the fate of individuals to the "higher morality" of the master plan.”

“Anyone who cannot cope with life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate...but with his other hand he can jot down what he sees among the ruins, for he sees different and more things than the others; after all, he is dead in his own lifetime and the real survivor.”