“Una Salus Victis Nullam Sperare Salutem - (Latin - written 19 BC)The only hope for the doomed, is no hope at all...”

“The idealist hopes. The romantic sees doom. The postmodernist sees doom and hopes.”

“Catholicism fascinated him, the contortions it put itself through to make ends meet. Father Murray had kept returning to the word 'despair.' There'd been a little (bizarre, Luke thought) linguistic diversion into Latin. Desperare, formed by the 'de' prefex, signifying the removal of or from, and 'sperare,' meaning to hope. The removal of hope. That was despair. The reasoning being that you couldn't live without hope. What Murray hadn't said (but what, along with the story of the suicide ghost, Luke remembered from childhood) was that despair was classified as a sin against the Holy Spirit. That was the perverse beauty of the religion: that your daughter could be raped and murdered and yourself still condemned for giving up hope.”

“Only when a book is written out of passion is there much hope of its being read with passion.”

“You cannot be doomed, after all, as long as you can still see the faint outline of hope on the opposite shore.”

“Hopes were wallflowers. Hopes hugged the perimeter of a dance floor in your brain, tugging at their party lace, all perfume and hems and doomed expectation. They fanned their dance cards, these guests that pressed against the walls of your heart.”