Suspect

Remember, the worst hour of your life only lasts for sixty minutes. (292)

Don’t say anything unless you can improve on the silence.

Truth is a matter of semantics, whether we like it or not.

Do you believe in God?” he asks. “Do you?” “I used to” “What happened?” “I couldn’t find him. He’s supposed to be everywhere. I mean, he’s not supposed to be playing hide-and-seek.

People think it’s easy to be cynical and pessimistic, but it’s incredibly hard work. It’s much easier to be hopeful.

Why do our parents have the ability to make us feel like children even when our hair is graying and we have a mortgage that feels like a Third World debt? (135)

I know the answer now, but I’m so frightened I’ve forgotten the question.

What is the point of sharing your life with someone if you can't communicate with them about the things that matter?

I try to explain how people react when overwhelmed by confusion and negative emotions. Some drink too much. Others overeat or beat their wives or kick the cat. And a surprising number hold their hands against a hot plate or slice open their skin with a razor blade. It's an extreme coping mechanism. They talk about their inner pain being turned outward. By giving it a physical manifestation they find it easier to deal with. (35)

My other chore is to buy a tree- a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try and find one in real life you face inevitable disapointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, if won't fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the rooftop and drive it home the branches are broken and twisted out of shape. You wrestle it through the door, gagling on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question from countless Christmases past: 'Is that really the best one you could find?

We are often criminals in the eyes of the earth, not only for having committed crimes, but because we know what crimes have been committed. - The Man in the Iron Mask (155)

The worst hour of your life is only sixty minutes long

If I become the man you want, I wouldn't be the man I am.

You know its going to be a bad day when you are having a prostate examination and you feel both of your doctor's hands on your shoulders!

Why give me this life and then give me this disease? Why give me joy and beauty of you and Charlie and then snatch it away? It’s like showing someone a glimpse of what life could be like and in the next breath telling them that it can never happen

Did you ever see the Truman Show?...Well sometimes I think I’m Truman. I think the whole world is watching me. My life has been created by someone else’s expectations. Everything is a façade. The walls are plywood and the furniture is papier-mâché. And then I think that if I could just run fast enough, I’d get around the next corner and find the back lot of the film set. But I can never run fast enough. By the time I arrive, they’ve built another street… and another.

Getting to know patients is what I do. I learn about their deepest fears and secrets. A professional relationship becomes a personal one. It can be no other way. (190)

Do you know that if you close your eyes really tightly, so you can see stars, when you open them again it's a brand new world.

I've discovered the secret of revenge. Outlive the f---ers! I'll dance on their graves.

People talk about the sins of omission. What does that mean? Who decides if something is a sin? I know that I'm being semantic, but judging by the way people moralize and jump to conclusions, anyone would think that the truth is real and solid, that it's something that can be picked up and passed around, weighed and measured, before being agreed upon. But the truth isn't like that. If I were to tell you this story tomorrow it would be different than today. I would have filtered the details through my defenses and rationalized my actions. Truth is a matter of semantics, whether we like it or not.

H.L. Mencken – journalist, beer-drinker and sage – said that for every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong. I share his mistrust for the obvious.

I was so worried about rocking the boat, I failed to spot the iceberg.

The very first child to introduce himself will be the one with the fewest friends.

I did that,” says my memory. “I could not have done that,” says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually—​​the memory yields. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Afterwards he congratulated me on a new university record for the most organs hit with one needle in a single procedure.

If somebody is incompetent or hard to get along with, promotion is an easier option than sacking.

around. The air screaming in pain.” Standing on tiptoes, she reaches above the stable door to get the key from its hiding place. The tightness in my chest returns. “What did you say?” “When?” “Just then… ‘the air screaming in pain.’” “Oh, the windmills; they make such a horrible sound.” She has the key in her hand. It is tied to a small piece of carved wood. Unconsciously, my hand flashes out and grips her wrist. I turn it over and the pressure makes her fingers open. “Who gave you that?” My voice is trembling. “Joe, you’re hurting me.” She looks at the key ring. “Bobby gave me that. He’s the young man I’ve been telling you about. He fixed the stone wall and the shingles on the stable. He built the greenhouse and did the planting. Such a hard worker. He took me to see the windmills…” For a brief moment I feel myself falling, but nothing happens. It’s like someone has tilted the landscape and I’m leaning into it, clutching the doorframe. “When?” “He stayed with us for three months over the summer—” “What did he look like?” “How can I put it politely? He’s very tall, but perhaps a little overweight.

I feel sick to the stomach; hopeless in the head.

A coincidence is just a couple of things happening simultaneously.