The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)

by Caleb Carr

in our private moments we Americans are running just as fast and fearfully as we were then, running away from the darkness we know to lie behind so many apparently tranquil household doors, away from the nightmares that continue to be injected into children’s skulls by people whom Nature tells them they should love and trust, running ever faster and in ever greater numbers toward those potions, powders, priests, and philosophies that promise to obliterate such fears and nightmares, and ask in return only slavish devotion.

you cannot objectify the subjective, you cannot generalize the specific.

Every human being must find his own way to cope with such severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses.