“No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved.”

“Sometimes you’re the only one that can save yourself; for no one is coming to save you.”

“They’re believers, Mr. Howard. Pentecostalist dispensationalists—they are saved, but they are surrounded by the unsaved, and they think their master is returning imminently, and anyone who isn’t saved by the time of his arrival is doomed. So they intend to save everyone whether or not they want to be saved, one brain parasite at a time.”

“Pull yourself together' is seldom said to anyone who can.”

“Anyone from anywhere can do anything.”

“Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.”

“You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.”

“I would fight the world for you, but I'm damned if I can figure out how to save you from yourself.”

“I can't save you from yourself, you gotta want it.”

“Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?
-Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.”