Quotes from Kevin Wignall

She smiled and

He didn't know how to deal with people who were falling apart, how to comfort them. He wasn't sure if he'd just forgotten how to be with people at all.

Religion fared badly in so much of the history he wrote about, and yet he was constantly surprised by how much solace he gained from places of worship. It wasn't redemptive, nothing to do with conscience—more the strange sense of meaningful emptiness he found in these places, a quality that allowed him to disappear effortlessly. The

The only distinction between him and the monsters he'd taken down was the legitimacy of being paid by the winning side. Or

This was the only real difference between the two of them, an empty apartment, and another full of life.

Dan smiled, once again thinking how only someone so young could be so blasé about the fickle intricacies of fate.

the march of technology isn't to be seen in the act of me hijacking Logan's car, but in me knowing that I had to do it.

There was a mattress in the small front yard and the smell of rotting food. The house looked like it needed some work, even in the forgiving glow of the streetlights. He'd done business over the years with the people-smuggling rackets and he couldn't believe this was what the immigrants were all so desperate to reach.

recognized him right away; the

It was a rare thing for someone in his position to see what death was, not in the instant but in the aftermath, where all its energies were absorbed.

That was the kind of life he dreamed about, where being cautious only applied to not taking things too fast in a relationship.

other dressed like someone who worked at some Internet start-up in Seattle.

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

He slept and no dreams came to him, his mind sinking into emptiness, the night devoid of shocks, of the heaving fishhook pulls on his heart, like lines tautening sharply against distant catches.

He guessed all anyone could ever do was make the right choice in the moment. And in this moment

He was carrying a little more weight, his hair greyer, but he looked healthy and relaxed, like a man who was comfortable with where he was in life and what lay ahead.

consoling himself with the thought that one day

I've been spoiled by life.

aside, Dan kept the gun

called Mathieu while he was in Paris, but had somehow failed to get around to it. "Okay. Well, thanks

He hadn't judged her, though, nor had he condemned her. He'd simply seen the point she'd reached, beyond ever redeeming herself. Maybe

He thought they might be shy around him, but in the spirit of three-year-olds, they actually paid him no attention at all.

curiosity, a trait they'd see as inherently human (the irony there is that I've witnessed curiosity in many animals and a dull lifeless lack of it in many humans).

If a person is measured by the regard they're shown by others, then maybe I'm not a person after all.