❝We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. “I claim India for Britain!” They’re going “You can’t claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!” “Do you have a flag …? “What? We don’t need a flag, this is our home, you bastards” “No flag, No Country, You can’t have one! Those are the rules… that I just made up!…and I’m backing it up with this gun, that was lent to me from the National Rifle Association.❞

❝The Crusades were, “We kill you in the name of Jesus!” “Wait, we have Jesus, too! He’s a prophet in our religion! We kill you in the name of Jesus!” “Do you? … Well, we kill you for your dark skin, for Jesus was a white man from Oxford!” “No, he wasn’t! He was from Judea! Dark-skinned man, such as we!” “… Really? Look, we’ve come all this way. Would you mind awfully if we hacked you to bits? Just for the press back home.❞

❝The burning of a book is a sad, sad sight, for even though a book is nothing but ink and paper, it feels as if the ideas contained in the book are disappearing as the pages turn to ashes and the cover and binding—which is the term for the stitching and glue that holds the pages together—blacken and curl as the flames do their wicked work. When someone is burning a book, they are showing utter contempt for all of the thinking that produced its ideas, all of the labor that went into its words and sentences, and all of the trouble that befell the author…❞

❝That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.❞

❝There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.❞

❝As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin.❞

❝An obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.❞

❝There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.❞

❝Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank - but that’s not the same thing.❞

❝That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.❞