You are the human clay," Vosch whispers fiercely in my ear. "And I am Michelangelo. I am the master builder, and you will be my masterpiece.

I'm one, too," he said. "What?" He spit a wad of blood and mucus into the dirt. "A virgin." What a shock. "What makes you think I'm a virgin?" I asked. "You wouldn't have hit me if you weren't.

Because we will die, but at least we will die unbroken.

I was a slave to something he believed to be silly and superstitious: the idea that all life was worth defending and that nothing justified surrender to the forces of destruction.

And red is not the color of apples or roses or the dresses that pretty girls wear in the summertime. That is not the color of red at all.

A word of advice, Will Henry. When a person of the female gender says she wants to show you something, run the other way. The odds are it is not something you wish to see.

Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.