Quotes from book

Lullaby

“We're the culture that cried wolf.”

“All you can do is hope for a pattern to emerge, and sometimes it never does. Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that.”

“The problem with every story is you tell it after the fact. Every play-by-play description on the radio, the home runs and strikeouts, even that's delayed a few minutes. Even live television is postponed a couple seconds. Even Sound and light can only go so fast.”

“Do we have free will, or do the mass media and our culture control us, our desires and actions, from the moment we’re born?”

“History is is filled with brilliant people who wanted to fix things and just made them worse.”

“You ever wonder when god's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?”

“In a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power.”

“We come from a generation of people who need their TV or stereo playing all the time. These people so scared of silence. These soundaholics, these quietophobics.”

“Doesn't reincarnation strike you as just another form of procrastination?”

“The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch.”

“We're all of us haunted and haunting.”

“Sticks and stones will break your bones, but now words can kill, too. This is how we must look to God. As if everything's just fine.”

“Our footsteps echo against the concrete floor. The steel roof hums with rain. And she says, 'Don't you feel, somehow, buried in history?”

“Either an ancient cursed Egyptian mummy has come back to life and is trying to kill the people next door, or they're watching a movie.”

“Still, he deserved to die. He called me an asshole.”

“Anymore, no one's mind is their own. You can't concentrate. You can't think. There's always some noise worming in. Singers shouting. Dead people laughing. Actors crying. All these little doses of emotion. Someone's always spraying the air with their mood.”

“According to Mona, you shouldn't kill people, because that drives you away from humanity. In order to justify killing, you have to make the victim your enemy. To justify any crime, you have to make the victim your enemy.”

“Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So just relax, Helen Boyle told me, and just enjoy the ride.
She said, "Even absolute corruption has its perks.”

“In order to save the world, Jesus Christ suffered for about thirty-six hours on the cross. I am willing to suffer an eternity in hell for the same cause.”