Columbine

by Dave Cullen

You can't really teach a kid anything: you can only show him the way and motivate him to learn it himself.

Fuselier ticked off Eric's personality traits: charming, callous, cunning, manipulative, comically grandiose, and egocentric, with an appalling failure of empathy. It was like reciting the Psychopathy Checklist.

Eric killed for two reasons: to demonstrate his superiority and to enjoy it. To a psychopath, both motives make sense. "Psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling," wrote Dr. Robert Hare, the leading authority on psychopaths. "They can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner."

"When I fell out the window, I knew somebody would catch me," he said. "That's what I need to tell you: that I knew the loving world was there all the time."

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places."