If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.

It bewildered Ig, the idea that a person could not be interested in music. It was like not being interested in happiness.

The soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. The soul would be no good to the devil if it could be destroyed. And it is not lost when placed in Satan's care, as is so often said. He always know exactly how to put his finger on it.

Taking a thing apart is always faster than putting something together. This is true of everything except marriage.

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

She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.

The language of sin was universal, the original Esperanto.