“Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.”

“You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and sex must be as bright as the future you gamble.”

“It's hard for me, a Jew, to stay in the moment. Without the past, where is the guilt? And without the future, where is the dread? And without guilt and dread, who am I?”

“I think I'd better plead the fifth.""Isn't that an admission of guilt, Detective?""Legally, it's a neutral position.""Oh, but it's morally damning, isn't it?""Morally?" His deep brown eyes sparkled and the weight in Tessa's belly melted all over her insides. "Oh, yeah," he said softly. "Morally, it's a big problem.”

“But each one of us is guilty insofar as he remained inactive. The guilt of passivity is different. Impotence excuses; no moral law demands a spectacular death. Plato already deemed it a matter of course to go into hiding in desperate times of calamity, and to survive. But passivity knows itself morally guilty of every failure, every neglect to act whenever possible, to shield the imperiled, to relieve wrong, to countervail. Impotent submission always left a margin of activity which, though not without risk, could still be cautiously effective. Its anxious omission weighs upon the individual as moral guilt. Blindness for the misfortune of others, lack of imagination of the heart, inner differences toward the witnessed evil--that is moral guilt.”

“This isn't about guilt or innocence, he says. The dinosaurs weren't morally good or bad, but they're all dead.”