The monster behind the wall stirred. I'd come to think of it as a monster, but it was just me. Or the darker part of me, at least. You probably think it would be creepy to have a real monster hiding inside of you, but trust me - it's far, far worse when the monster is really just your own mind. Calling it a monster seemed to distance it a little, which made me feel better about it. Not much better, but I take what I can get.

Fear is a ... it's a weird thing, when you think about it. People are only afraid of other things, they're never afraid of themselves.

Feelings aren't good or bad. They're just weak or strong. Love, for example, is weak: someone loves you, you love them back, you're happy for a while, and then it fades away. But if one of those lovers betrays the other, then you have a real emotion - then you have something powerful, something that leaves a mark you'll never be rid of. Betrayal is the most delicious of all, but it takes a while to set it up, and fear can be just as intense if you know what you're doing.

Dead bodies are calm and silent—perfectly still, perfectly harmless. A corpse will never move, it will never laugh, and it will never judge. A corpse will never shout at you, hit you, or leave you. Far away from the zombies and junk that you see on TV, a corpse is actually the perfect friend. The perfect pet. I feel more comfortable with them than I do with real people.

I'd like to think humans have a stronger sense of justice than the random forces of nature do.

Humans aren't defined by death, and they're not defined by what they lack. They're defined by their connections.

Facts are too busy being true to worry about how you feel about them.