When the deeply wounded go inwardly blind, then pretend, with panache, that they can still see, they become monumentally destructive.
-- Grady / "The Holy Goat" (First Telling: Magic Words)

Importance: This quote from the novel's narrator is a foundational thematic idea that resonates throughout it, observing the ways in which connection with one's spiritual interior is imperative to performance in the outside world. As Grady observes, a lack of understanding of oneself inevitably leads to mistreatment of others. This lesson comes to bear time and time again throughout the text.

There’s something good in people. Something way better than the way the people look and talk and feel. It’s buried deeper than thought.
-- Jamey (First Telling: Magic Words)

Importance: This vote of confidence in human nature from a character who has suffered such deep loss is an important facet of the novel's humanistic themes, arguing that people are inherently good. These conflicts between external action and interior truth recur throughout the novel, as each...