I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.

Some things you don't have to promise. You just do.

I do not mean to mock or ridicule your life's work, for in one way at least it mimics my own: We have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of phantoms. The difference is the nature of those phantoms. Mine exist between other men's ears; yours live solely between your own.

If the world breaks a million and one promises, can you trust the million and second?

Just because a man is a homicidal maniac doesn't make him wrong.

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky.

His heart, the war. Her face, the battlefield.