Some things you didn't give away, no matter how much you owed.

But God fears women even more that He fears the devil- and is right to. She, with her power to bring life into the world, was truly made in the image of the Creator, not man.

Was there any human urge more pitiful-or more intense- than wanting another chance at something?

She'd thought love had something to do with happiness, but it turned out they were not even vaguely related. Love was closer to a need, no different from the need to eat, to breathe.

You think you know someone. But mostly you just know what you want to know.

It was like wondering how evil had come into the world or what happens to a person after he dies: an interesting philosophical exercise, but also curiously pointless, since evil and death happened, regardless of the why and the how and what-it-meant.

I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.