Justin Cronin, The City of Mirrors

"All things found their ends."

"It is an interesting truth that the human body, liberated from its head, is in essence a bag of blood with a built-in straw."

"You are Entering the Red Zone. Proceed at Own Risk. When in Doubt Run."

"Drinking myself blind seemed like the next logical step."

"I like cats as much as the next person, in the right quantity."

"It was like leading people to the edge of a cliff, showing them the view, and then shoving them off."

"Behind every great hatred is a love story."

"So, at the last, a story."

"What is home but a place where you are truly known?"

"All stories end when they have returned to their beginnings."

"Below lies the dark core, that great iron ball beneath all things. Its compressed weight is fantastic; it is older than time itself. It is a vestige of the blackness that predates all existence, when a formless universe existed in a state of chaotic un-creation, lacking awareness even of itself."

"For the first time he considers the full emotional dimensions of the day. His life is changing but his parent’s lives are changing too. Like a habitat, abruptly deprived of a major species, the household will be wrenched into realignment by his departure. Like all young people, he has no idea who his parents really are. For 18 years he has experienced their existence only in so far as it is related to his own needs. Suddenly his mind is full of questions. What do they talk about when he's not around? What secrets do they hold from each other? What aspirations have been left to languish? What private grievances held in check by the shared project of child rearing will now in his absence, lurch into the light?"

"City of memories, city of mirrors."

"Absolution is not the same as understanding."

"Behind every great hatred is a love story. For I am a man who has known and tasted love. I say “a man” because that is how I know myself. Look at me, and what do you see? Do I not take the form of a man? Do I not feel as you do, suffer as you do, love as you do, mourn as you do? What is the essence of a man, if not these things?"

"All things fell into the past but one; and what that was, was love."

"It was as if I'd lost some cosmic game of musical chairs; the song had stopped, I was left standing, and there was simply nothing to be dine about it."

"What is left when there is no love? A rope and rock."

"She thought she should take a moment to pray. But, as she was holding a loaded rifle, conventional prayer did not seem entirely suitable. Sister Peg hoped that God would help her, but it was her belief that He much preferred for people to attend to themselves. Life was a test; it was up to you to pass it or not. She raised the gun to her clavicle and angled one eye down the length of the barrel."

"It's children, he thought, that give us our lives; without them we are nothing, we are here and then gone, like the dust."