"When Victoria told me how intensely she hated me, I kept the Beretta aimed at her face, but heard myself say, 'I don't hate you.'She called me an effing liar and said, 'Hate makes the world go around. Envy, lust and hate.'I stopped hating anyone the day when I realized hating can't restore to me anything that's lost."

"The epiphany machine will not discover anything about you that you do not, in some way, already know. But think for a moment about surprise. What is surprising is never what is revealed but the grace with which it has been hidden."

"Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law."

"In most communities it is illegal to cry 'fire' in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?"

"He [the poet] brings out the inner part of things and presents them to men in such a way that they cannot refuse but must accept it. But how the mere choice and rhythm of words should produce so magical an effect no one has yet been able to comprehend, and least of all the poets themselves."

"Mankind is like dogs, not gods - as long as you don't get mad they'll bite you - but stay mad and you'll never be bitten. Dogs don't respect humility and sorrow."

"[T]he more critical lesson I learned that day is still one too many kids never figure out: don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing."

"When they explore opportunity cost of black blood I hear ancient corridors survived on the neck of ancient souls Satellite empires, the oversight dark forces."