Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.

If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you.

Try any goddam thing you like, no matter how boringly normal or outrageous. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, toss it. Toss it even if you love it.

For," I said, "a murdered man or woman dies not in God's time, but in Man's. He... or she... is cut short before he... or she... can atone for sin, and so all errors must be forgiven. When you think of it that way, all murderers are a gateway for heaven.

They were trying to run, trying to hide. But the rock would not hide them; the dead tree gave no shelter.

Was it pretty? Your country. . .your land?" "It was beautiful," the gunslinger said. "There were fields and forests and rivers and mists in the morning. But that's only pretty. My mother used to say that the only real beauty is order and love and light.

the only mortal sin is giving up.