Teddy laughed, heard the sound of it carry off on the sweep of night air and dissolve in the distant surf, as if it had never been, as if the island and the sea and the salt took what you thought you had and...

We all believe lies that bring us more comfort than the truth.

I don’t have room in my heart for most people. Got nothing against them, but I got nothing for them, either.

After all your years climbing around in people’s heads like a cranial janitor, do you think people know why they do things? People rationalize, they turn their delusions into something romantic that they can disguise as ethics or principles or ideals. People are selfish, Doctor- odiously, monstrously, but in so small and paltry a monstrousness that we barely notice it.

But always in the back of your throat is this scream, barely suppressed.

I don’t believe he casts people into eternal flame for fornication, as you pointed out. Or for believing in a version of him that is a little off the mark. I believe – or, I want to believe – he considers the worst sins to be those we commit in his name.

It’s been a complicated decade for me.” She.

It was one of those sneaky days in late winter where spring came along to get a lay of the land.

We age as the rest of the world watches, she thought, but somehow we’re the last to know. There.

Only a child thinks life is about her wants.