You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.

She shrugged. "You can be happy for someone else's good fortune, but that doesn't mean you forget your own bad luck.

by now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago.

But Katie knew it was a sin, had known from the moment she made the decision to lie with Adam. However, the transgression wasn't making love without the sanction of marriage. It was that for the first time in her life, Katie had put herself first. Put her own wants and needs above everything and everyone else.

If there's something as good as [him] in my life, I'm going to pay for it.

You can touch everything and be connected to nothing.

I didn't want to see her because it would make me feel better. I came because without her, it's hard to remember who I am.