You might even provide a Heaven for them. We need You for that. Hell we can make for ourselves. - Margaret Atwood

He was not a monster, to her. Probably he had some endearing trait: he whistled, off key, in the shower, he had a yen for truffles, he called his dog Liebchen and made it sit up for little pieces of raw steak. How easy it is to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.

It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.

Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past — the past of others, loaded onto their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.