Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.

Confusing the author and the character seems to be a popular and rather unsophisticated reaction to books.

And when pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentors what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos.

It was a defeat, resorting to crude threats in a game of subtlety, but sometimes one must sacrifice a battle to win the war.

You can't grow if you're constantly defined by this collection of frozen moments that you keep returning to. And if you can't grow, you're not alive.

Most men have at least one redeeming feature. Finding one for Brother Rike requires a stretch. Is 'big' a redeeming feature?

She'll never love you better than she loves her own children.