The good guys had to operate on a higher level than the killers--just for society to keep track of who was who.

The bad things don't seem to happen to bad people.' That's because they already did. There's no original evil left in the world.

People react predictably, especially when they don't have time to think.

Plenty of people who survive tragedies end up ambivalent about danger--frightened by it, yet strangely drawn to it.

...the horrific fact that our lives and those of the people we love are impermanent and exquisitely fragile, that any of us can cease to exist without warning, that loving anyone, anywhere, at any time, leaves you infinitely vulnerable at every single moment. (20)

I figured anybody who talked about church as much as she did was using it a little like cocaine anyhow.

Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children... it is the reason that one human being's intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.