Redemption is for the weak. The strong keep sinning

She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

There was noise in the corridor outside Alice’s office; and though it was nothing of concern, they separated. Roger stood, fingers tucked into his waistcoat pockets, admiring prints on the wall that held no interest for him. The noise was Melanie, but her voice, a length of razor wire wrapped in a soufflé, eventually faded.

No one mentioned the sad piece of tinsel, naked in places, hanging across the chimneybreast, nor that Twelfth Night was a week ago. No one mentioned the two Christmas cards on the mantelpiece. No one mentioned them because inside they were blank.

My style isn't subtle, I know that. I'm sure in fact it violates all kinds of rules about interrogation and all that, I never studied the field. I'm not sure it would have helped anyway—some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time had unconventional styles, I think that's the way the world ought to work. You don't take a guy who's finding success and make him unlearn his style and do it the traditional way, it's encouraging mediocrity. Nobody ever knew when Randall Cunningham was going to get happy feet or when Favre was going to shovel pass a TD out of a sack. You train that stuff out of them and you take away that surprise. So I ask questions, I look for soft, spongy areas and push on them to see if the person cries out. It doesn't endear me to a lot of people, but I've got enough friends and I'm not looking for more.

…but his problem was infinity; his problem was time running along the x-axis versus stress running along the y-axis, and there never seemed to be time without stress. Stress was a constant.