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41 " Don't be wasting your sympathy on me, kid. I did pretty damn well, I'll tell you what. You snag a woman like that, you don't ask what you did to deserve it. You just hope she never wises up and changes her mind. "
― Andrew Davidson , The Gargoyle
42 " And just when you start thinking that you've accepted who you are, that changes, too. Because who you are is not permanent. "
43 " This will mark the third time that an arrow has entered my chest. The first time brought me to Marianne Engel. The second time separated us.The third time will reunite us. "
44 " My words were Egyptian hieroglyphics before the discovery of the Rosetta stone; my words were wounded soldiers limping home, guns spent, from a lost battle; my words were dying fish, flipping hysterically as the net is opened and the pile spreads across the boat deck like a slippery mountain trying to become a prairie.My words were, and are, unworthy of Marianne Engel. "
45 " Personal growth must sometimes be measured by distance travelled rather than by current position "
46 " Everyone's past, I try to rationalize, is nothing more than the collection of memories they choose to remember. "
47 " quod me nutrit, me destruit "
48 " She worked diligently to develop her understanding of breath; for she knew that with breath she could create a world. She imagined herself breathing life into the glass and, with every week that passed, Sei came closer to realizing the loveliness of the objects that she could picture in her imagination. "
49 " . . . how could I protect myself? I had the Viking's scabbard, but not the sword; I had the Buddhist's robe, but not the faith. "
50 " I envy all suffering, because suffering is necessary to become spiritually beautiful. "
51 " Scatology was strictly out, as nowhere in my psyche do I harbor the desire to shit on someone and even less do I have the inclination to be shat upon. And if I a a snob for not participating in films that involve sex with animals, then so be it; I am a snob. "
52 " Who would have guessed that the monster of fraud was a democracy? "
53 " The problem with people like us is that we don't die properly. "
54 " Christ, I'm in Hell and they wear uniforms. "
55 " I have no idea whether beginning with my accident was the best decision, as I've never written a book before. Truth be told, I started with the crash because I wanted to catch your interest and drag you into the story. You're still reading, so it seems to have worked. "
56 " These day's I like to imagine that if a man were to enter through the slash on the book's cover, as if it were a door, he could walk right into the heart of the Inferno. "
57 " There was a brief moment of weightlesssness: a balancing point between air and earth, dirt and heaven. How strange, I thought, how like the moment between sleeping and falling when everything is beautifully surreal and nothing is corporeal. How like floating towards completion. But as often happens in that time between existing in the world and fading into dreams, this moment over the edge ended with the ruthless jerk back to awareness. "
58 " You are mine, I am yours: you may be sure of this. You've been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay. "
59 " Defeat itself is defeated by the embrace of defeat... "
60 " Every Good Friday, this anchored but ever-changing anniversary of my accident, I go to the little creek that saved my life and light one more candle. I offer thanks for two facts: that I am one year older, and that I am one year closer to death. "