“… after all, who isn't a survivor from the wreck of childhood?”

“After all, it was never Darnay he quoted, only Sydney, drunk and wrecked and dissipated. Sydney, who died for love.”

“You can get used to anything - haven't I already said that? Isn't that what all survivors say?”

“Over time as most people fail the survivor's exacting test of trustworthiness, she tends to withdraw from relationships. The isolation of the survivor thus persists even after she is free.”

“What is it about childhood that never lets you go, even when you're so wrecked it's hard to believe you ever were a child?”

“Childhood isn't just those years. It's also the opinions you form about them afterward. That's why our childhoods are so long.”

“Many take the name of God after receiving blows in life. But he who can offer his mind like a flower at the feet of the Lord right up from childhood is indeed blessed.”

“It isn't wise to be rude to one's mother. She knows everything about your childhood that is potentially embarassing.”

“Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!”

“Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all
that once lived here”