This was like watching murder. Defilement. And it was something worse than either of those things. Even among his family, black trade as they were, books were holy things.

My mother used to say not sleeping was the sign of a guilty mind. It could have been. There was a lot in my mind to feel guilty about. When you__e drunk and trying to sleep, your thoughts are visited by the ghosts of those deeds whose heat still glows hottest in your personal darkness. Our actions burn much longer than the moments in which they occur. And drunks like me, we hide from the glow of the embers by fueling other fires and hiding within the flames.

As Jess watched in numb horror, the man tore a page from the book and stuffed it into his mouth.

People never think of a child as being a monster, because if they did, they would never be able to sleep at night. Children are where lies peoples hopes, dreams, innocence... Not where lies murder.

...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover__lthough she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...

There once was a kindly farmer who found a viper freezing on the ground in the snow. Please help me, the poor creature said, for I am too cold to live. The farmer took the viper and put it inside of his shirt, and the viper began to warm itself and come alive again. But upon coming alive, it bit the farmer most wretchedly, and as the farmer died, he asked the viper, but why? Why when I was so trusting of you?Because I am a viper, the snake replied. And one cannot expect kindness from evil.