More than most, I know the pain of surviving.

Show, not tell, right? Action, not words. You don’t want to hear how sorry I am or how things will be different this time. You want to see it with your own eyes. And until I can show you that, you won’t tell me what I want to hear.

He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.

But wishes were empty thoughts, cast down a dark hole. They didn't come true unless you worked for them. I'd learned that about the world, if nothing more.

Nobility and self-sacrifice sound wonderful in theory, but now he’s seen how it feels. A dead hero is still dead at the end of the day, and you’re still alone.

Dying isn’t like living; it requires no effort at all.

We stand a professional distance apart, as if I can’t feel his pain screaming in my head. Mine amplifies his; they share a joint sound—that of glass breaking—until they swell to a crescendo that deafens.