If a crowd can flinch, they flinch. More than a thousand men flinch under the fist of just one. I don't see what the women do.

Yer the only friend I got, pigpiss... Ain't that the biggest tragedy you ever heard?

Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

Cept for Ben, who I can’t describe much further without seeming soft and stupid and like a boy, so I won’t, just to say that I never knew my pa, but if you woke up one day and had a choice of picking one from a selecshun, if someone said, here, then, boy, pick who you want, then Ben wouldn’t be the worst choice you could make that morning.

And changing for the better doesn't mean that he's ever going to reach good.

Life ain't fair. It ain't. Not never. It's pointless and stupid and there's only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can't love nothing or no one cuz it'll all be taken away or ruined and you'll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.

We sure as ruddy heck ain't in Prentisstown no more," I say to Manchee under my breath.