Blood of My Blood

Pain means you're alive. Pain is good. Pain is life.

What's it like to go looking for your soul, only to learn you never had one to begin with?

Yes, pain meant life. But the symmetric property did not apply; Life did not mean pain.

If you don't feel anything, you can't be hurt.

It was an ugly day. It was an ugly room. Except for the body.

I'm not sure which is worse--being born to it or learning it.

This isn't 'I do something for you, you do something for me'. This is hard-core friendship. Varsity level. This is me asking you to do something for me without getting anything in return. This is friendship, Howie.

He wasn't just dead; he was severely dead. He was one of the deadest people Hughes had ever seen, and Hughes had seen quite a few.

I taught you everything you know, but not everything I know.

It was like playing checkers, only to learn that your opponent was playing chess all along.

At least you'll be alive to hate me.

Once he gets inside your head, you're dead.

We all do stupid things, Conscience. If they don't kill us, they weren't stupid enough, I guess.

Billy always survived. Like a cockroach. The world's smartest, meanest, craziest cockroach.

I was going to bake you a cake with a hacksaw in it," he said without preamble, " but-" "But you realized it wouldn't work." "Well, no. I realized I don't know how to bake.

He realized he'd spent his life trying to understand Billy. But had never really understood himself.

He had to do it in secret. He didn't want people to think he was buying forgiveness or understanding. Those two things should not be for sale, at any price.

Luck, though, as Billy had said it so many times, was like lightning--it struck sinners and saints in equal measure, and it did to on its time-table, not yours.

I’m going to die. This is how I’m going to die, and this is where I’m going to die. Because I did all the stupid things you yell at stupid people for doing in stupid movies.

She knew all about the cops and their trigger fingers and their predilection for dealing with those who would attack their brethren. Her father had drummed such stories into her from a young age; more so into Whiz, who bore the burden of being a black boy about to grow into a black teen. "If the police even look at you funny," Dad had said, "you hit the ground and put your hands over your head. Don't talk back. Don't try to run. Don't try to explain. They're just looking for an excuse to shoot you. Don't give it to them.

I have to stop getting shot

At least he took the rest of the food I brought him. A growing boy fighting his insane father to the death has to keep the calorie count up there. Fighting to the death is sweaty work.

That you I feel up in my brain, trying to rummage around inside my head, rearrange the furniture? I don't think that'll work. I taught you everything you know, but not everything I know.

For a fat guy, G. William sure could sustain a long burst of screaming and yelling.

It all happened. It wasn't a dream. And I'm still alive. I guess that's something.

You know the expression 'As a crow flies,' don't you? People use it to mean a straight line. And that's very important. Because the way a capital-c Crow flies is a straight line. It may appear jagged to some, but the Crow flies in a straight line to its goal.

Like a serial killer, the house blended in. It suited its place and its place suited it.