“We're all damaged in our own way. Nobody's perfect. I think we're all somewhat screwy. Every single one of us.”

“Nobody's perfect. We're all just one step up from the beasts and one step down from the angels.”

“We're all damaged somehow."-A Great and Terrible Beauty”

“There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don't think it matters. Either way, we're on our own.”

“We're all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.”

“Some people feel love in their hearts, Julie. Some of us feel it all way into our souls. We're the ones who can't forget.”

“I think we're in the end-game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt, I think, the next congressional election — that's my own feeling — let alone the presidential one.”

“The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.”

“Most of us tend to belittle all suffering except our own," said Mary. "I think it's fear. We don't want to come too near in case we're sucked in and have to share it.”

“Education ent only books and music – it's asking questions, all the time. There are millions of us, all over the country, and no one, not one of us, is asking questions, we're all taking the easiest way out.”