[H]er retaliation only made the sin the greater because she could not find words to confess.

I don’t much care for all this talk of God washing away all my dirt. I like a bit of grit around the edges. It gives me character and does a passable job of faking depth, from a distance.

Ashlei was free to spout off how much she loved her savior because Jesus was not about to rear back and tell her He did not quite feel the same way, that He had died for the sins of the world just because it was fun and did not want things to be too serious. He was only thirty-three, after all, and might want to martyr himself for other people.

The last confession he heard was from a young hysterical girl who seemed to him to be making up a chain of small sins so that she could imagine herself full of remorse.

Whoever fails to confess his sins, condemns himself.

You got a vicious animal inside you. It wants to snap, it wants to attack, but it's harmless because some woman fitted a muzzle on it. Now, how do you imagine it feels about that muzzle? How do you think it will regard the woman the moment that muzzle is off, and she is within biting distance?