“Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.”

“We both knew that what I said was the truth, as well as being a lie. The pure and honest answer was pinging between us, hovering above the weeds.”

“She doesn't understand that doors, walls, fences, ceilings - they're helpless to keep out what determinedly desires to get in.”

“Every atom in me feels composed of lead. This is what dying is: a pull to the ground.”

“Yeah, reflections! The same, but different. Like twins - like blood brothers! And when you need something bad done, like punishment or revenge, you'll just ask me, and I will do it -”

“Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.”

“I would always be lonely, but no more alone.”

“I suppose that's what happens when you make other people's lives miserable: life gets miserable back at you.”

“Evangeline's obliviousness was a reason to like her rather than not: I liked least those schoolfellows whose awareness of me invariably caused misery.”

“I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.”

“I thought about how stupid it is, that all of us are born destined to desire somebody else, though desire brings with it such disappointment and pain. Humankind's history must be scored bloody with heartbreak. This hankering for affection is a blight upon us.”