I see God now as an unimaginative writer of popular fictions, someone who builds stories around sadistic and graceless plots, narratives that exist only to express His terror of a woman's power to choose who and how to love, to redefine love as she sees fit, not as God thinks it ought to be. The author is unworthy of His own characters.

When you think about it, most of the good ideas came along to make sin a whole lot easier.

Gold don't come off. What's good stays good no matter how much of a beating it takes.

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

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

It was something... the way a person's life picked up speed, the way a life was like a bullet aimed at one final target, impossible to slow or turn aside, and like the bullet, you were ignorant of what you were going to hit, would never know anything except the rush and the impact.

If you didn't have me to rake you over the coals now and then, there wouldn't be any fire in your life at all.