Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.

Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

- Why you?- (...) I’m the best.- Modest of you.- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.

Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.

It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.

Many are called, few are chosen.

...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze. “I understand,” she said. It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he’d become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration.