Either the gates of hell had opened, or Tom had lost his mind; for there could be nothing like this entity outside the precincts of the damned, except in the fevered fantasies of a raving paranoid psychopath

What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness, This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn't ever tell its story. It's like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace.

Virtue is imaginative. Evil, repetitive.

The world needed a little Evil, so Good had something to compare itself to, but you couldn't let it think it had the right-of-way on the road and an invitation to dinner.

We need to laugh at the irrationality of evil, for in doing so we deny evil's power over us, diminish its influence in the world, and tarnish the allure it has for some people.

Keep in mind the roots of violence: Lust, envy, anger, avarice, and vengeance...the taproot...the killer's ultimate and truest motivation...is the hatred of truth...the hatred of truth is a vice. From it comes pride and an enthusiasm for disorder.