Tender is the flesh

• He tried to hate all of humanity for being so fragile and ephemeral but he couldn't keep it up because hating everyone is the same as hating no one.
• Naming children after their parents is stripping them of an identity, reminding them who they belong to.
• After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other.

The power

• It doesn't matter that she shouldn't, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth
• You can’t be the one that hurts and the one that comforts
• A wave of spray from the ocean feels powerful, but it is only there for a moment, the sun dries the puddles and the water is gone. Then you feel maybe it never happened. That is how it was with us. The only wave that changes anything is a tsunami
• One of them says, 'Why did they do it?' And the other answers, 'Because they could.' That is the only answer there ever is

Crooked House

• I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate . Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you
• Because this is just what a nightmare is. Walking about among people you know, looking in their faces- and suddenly the faces change- and it's not someone you know any longer- it's a stranger- a cruel stranger

Alice's adventures in Wonderland

• I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then
• "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" "I don't much care where" "Then it doesn't matter which way you go" "so long as I get somewhere" "Oh, you're sure to do that if you only walk long enough "
• Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm someone else
• They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's anyone left alive!

The color purple

• All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. I love Harpo. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me
• Unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly

Damned

• No, it’s not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough. It won’t help the situation for you to get all upset
• How miserably hypocritical, you might say, but no sooner am I offered a chance to flee Hell than I yearn to stay. Few families hold their relations as closely as do prisons. Few marriages sustain the high level of passion that exists between criminals and those who seek to bring them to justice. It’s no wonder the Zodiac Killer flirted so relentlessly with the police. Or that Jack the Ripper courted and baited detectives with his - or her - coy letters. We all wish to be pursued. We all long to be desired
• It's my petty fear of personal rejection that allows so many true evils to exist. My cowardice enables atrocities
• If you ask me, people in hell just scream to hear their own voice and to pass time
• I'm not a victim, not any longer. I hope. I hope, therefore I am

The murder of Roger Ackroyd

• The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it
• Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details ... and they call the result intuition

Blood meridian

• It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.
• The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day.
• A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it

to continue...