“Nothing in life is fair. Fair is a dirty word and I'll thank you not to use that language around me.”
“But as I have noticed on more than one occaision, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.”
“In my life long study of human beings, I have found that no matter how hard they try, they have found no way yet to prevent the arrival of Monday morning. And they do try, of course, but Monday always comes, and all the drones have to scuttle back to their dreary workday lives of meaningless toin and suffering.”
“Feeling - what authentic human fun!”
“I stood up. It was all too much. I could not even meet my own expectations, and to be asked to deal with all theirs too was suffocating.”
“Rectory always sounded to me like a place you would find a proctologist.”
“Saturday morning was their unrestricted television time, and they usually took advantage of it to watch a series of cartoon shows that would certainly have been impossible before the discovery of LSD.”
“The mission sat in a converted store front on the corner of a medium-busy street. There was a small crowd gathered in front - no real surprise, since they gave out food and clothing, all all you had to do was spend a few moments of your life listening to the good reverend explain why you were going to Hell. It seemed like a pretty good bargain, even to me, but I wasn't hungry.”
“Always marveling at how New Age pseudo-philosophy had taken over the Internet.”
“For my part, my interest in Paris had faded away completely long ago when I learned that it was in France.”
“But as I have noticed on more than one occasion, life itself is unfair, and there is no complaint department, so we might as well accept things the way they happen, clean up the mess, and move on.”
“Who was I if I was no longer me?”
“I don’t,” Cody insisted. Now he was not only standing up to both of us, he was practically breaking his own record for chattiness at the same time. And even though I didn’t have a heart, except for circulatory purposes, I felt an affection for him and wanted to come down on his side.”
“What a frail thing a human being is—and without the Passenger, that is all I was, a poor imitation of a human being. Weak, soft, slow and stupid, unseeing, unhearing and unaware, helpless, hopeless, and harried.”
“Of course Dexter always applauds the charitable spirit. But in general, I am so very much in favor of it because it is nearly always a warning sign that something nefarious, wicked, and playful is going on behind the Mother Teresa mask.”
“Demonic Possession: Fact or Fancy? it said, and as I read the title I distinctly heard the far-off sound of a nickel dropping. It would be very easy for an outside observer to shake his head and say, Yes, obviously, Dexter is a dull boy if he has never thought of that. But the truth is, I had not. Demon has so many negative connotations, doesn’t it? And as long as the Presence was present, there seemed no need to define it in those arcane terms. It was only now that it was gone that I required some explanation. And why not this one? It was a bit old-fashioned, but its very hoariness seemed to argue that there might be something to it, some connection that went back to the nonsense with Solomon and Moloch and all the way up to what was happening to me today.”
“Debs stood in the rain and watched him go, which I am sure she intended to make Wilkins nervous enough to leap from the car and confess, but considering the weather it struck me as excessive zeal. I got into the car and waited for her.”
“I saw nothing I didn’t expect to see at a crime scene: a small crowd gathered at the yellow tape, some uniforms guarding the perimeter, a few cheap-suited detectives, and my team, the forensic geeks, scrabbling through the bushes on their hands and knees. All perfectly normal to the naked eye. And so I turned to my infallible fully clothed interior eye for an answer.”
“was a full-service marina for the terminally rich, the kind of place where they cleaned and polished your bowline when you brought the boat in.”
“When I was very young I once saw a variety act on TV. A man put a bunch of plates on the end of a series of supple rods, and kept them up in the air by whipping the rods around to spin the plates. And if he slowed down or turned his back, even for a moment, one of the plates would wobble and then crash to the ground, followed by all the others in series.
That's a terrific metaphor for life, isn't it? We're all trying to keep our plates spinning in the air, and once you get them up there you can't take your eyes off them and you have to keep chugging along without the rest. Except that in life, somebody keeps adding more plates, hiding the rods, and changing the law of gravity when you're not looking. And so every time you think you have all your plates spinning nicely, suddenly you hear a hideous clattering crash behind you and a whole row of plates you didn't even know you had begins to hit the ground”
“Dexter is modest, even self-effacing, and certainly aware of the limits of his considerable talent. But if there was a limit to what I could discover on the computer, I had not found it yet. I sat back down and went to work.”
“I wandered back over to where Deborah stood, talking to Angel-no-relation. They both looked at me expectantly, but I had no readily available wit to offer, which was very much out of character. Happily for my world-famous reputation for permanently cheerful stoicism, before I could really turn gloomy, Deborah looked over my shoulder and snorted. “About fucking time.”
“I AM NOT REALLY PARANOID. I DON’T BELIEVE THAT I AM surrounded by mysterious enemies who seek to trap me, torture me, kill me. Of course, I know very well that if I allow my disguise to slip and reveal me for what I am, then this entire society will join together in calling for my slow and painful death, but this is not paranoia—this is a calm, clearheaded view of consensus reality, and I am not frightened by it. I simply try to be careful so it doesn’t happen.”
“I was building a perfect and nearly impenetrable facade of gleaming antiseptic steel and glass to cement onto the front of the Gothic horror of Castle Dexter.”
“unknown to everyone but Deborah, I was a twisted homicidal sicko myself.”
“Deborah led me away from it and over to the far end of the room. “Dexter,” she said, “promise me you didn’t kill this guy.”
“And then I felt a strange stirring inside, a kind of surging fulfillment, a feeling that things were just the way they should be, now and evermore, world without end; that what was brought together here must never be rent asunder.”
“Deborah was the only person on earth who knew what I really was, and even though she was still getting used to the idea, I had thought she understood the very careful boundaries set up by Harry, and understood, too, that I would never cross them.”
“In spite of the fact that I am a soulless monster who enjoys killing, it stung to have her think of me that way, especially since I had given my word of honor as an ogre that I was entirely innocent, at least in this case. I wanted to get along with my sister, but I was also miffed that she seemed a little too enthusiastic about her role as a representative of the Full Majesty of the Law, and not quite willing enough as my sidekick and confidante.”
“But a very large piece of my carefulness had always been listening to the subtle whisperings of the Dark Passenger, and it was still being strangely shy about sharing its thoughts.”
“The so-called sensitivity of neurotics develops along with their egotism; they cannot bear for other people to flaunt the sufferings with which they are increasingly preoccupied themselves.”
“We were all fated to die, and so it is good that at least we can be sure our deaths today might bring about a good end, might make the world a better place.”
“A nation is born stoic, and dies epicurean. At its cradle (to repeat a thoughtful adage) religion stands, and philosophy accompanies it to the grave.
In the beginning of all cultures a strong religious faith conceals and softens the nature of things, and gives men courage to bear pain and hardship patiently; at every step the gods are with them, and will not let them perish, until they do. Even then a firm faith will explain that it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath; evil does not destroy faith, but strengthens it. If victory comes, if war is forgotten in security and peace, then wealth grows; the life of the body gives way, in the dominant classes, to the life of the senses and the mind; toil and suffering are replaced by pleasure and ease; science weakens faith even while thought and comfort weaken virility and fortitude. At last men begin to doubt the gods; they mourn the tragedy of knowledge, and seek refuge in every passing delight.
Achilles is at the beginning, Epicurus at the end. After David comes Job, and after Job, Ecclesiastes.”
“dark and deep in her eyes. He’d opened his mouth without any idea what he would”
“There's a mess inside you:
You clean the outside.”
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