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The police department’s just another bureaucratic government agency, after all. The top brass don’t think of anything but their own careers. Some are not like that, but most of them have worked their way up playing it safe, and their goal is to find a cushy job in a related organization or private industry after they retire. So they don’t want to touch anything the least bit risky or hot. They probably don’t even eat pizza without letting it cool off.

No one knows for certain what it means to die until they actually do it.

“It’s just that you’re about to do something out of the ordinary…

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Right. And after you do something like that, the everyday look of things might seem to change a little. Things may look different to you than they did before. But don’t let appearances fool you. There’s always only one reality.”

She only felt revulsion for any kind of religious fundamentalists. The very thought of such people’s intolerant worldview, their inflated sense of their own superiority, and their callous imposition of their own beliefs on others was enough to fill her with rage.

If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.

You cannot talk to people successfully if they think you are not interested in what they have to say or you have no respect for them.

We are not alone. Our stories are not anomalies. (page xvii)

One of the most succinct commentaries I've come across for encouraging plain talk came from an executive who told his staff, "Don't utilize utilize. Use use."

I try to avoid pompous language. Some people use it as an oral status symbol to impress others. Others use it because they've simply forgotten how to talk in simple, clear, everyday terms. You will be far better off, because you'll be better received and better understood, if you avoid "trendy talk."

A Revolution is nothing other than the replacement of one given type of Authority with another.

The trouble with turning a blind eye is that people often take the opportunity to punch you in the face.

“Desperate people do desperate things,” said Spencer-Talbot. “Perhaps if we all did more to make things less desperate, then perhaps there would be less violence.”

“This is a terrible work,” I said. “Why did you do it?”

“The usual reasons,” said the Magister. “I told myself it was piety and duty to the Church, but a thousand years of contemplation will batter down the doors of one’s own delusions.”