There is no such thing as static happiness. Happiness is a mixed thing, a thing compounded of sacrifices, and losses, and betrayals. - John Updike

Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.

A woman you've endured such a gnawing of desire for, you can't help bearing a little grudge against, when the ache is gone.

[Nelson, to Annabelle] "The misery of the world," he says, reaching into himself to overcome her resistance. "That's what I kept thinking during my group this morning – the pity of everything, all of us, these confused souls trying so pathetically hard to break out of the fog – to see through our compulsions, our needs as they chew us up..."