“You have to understand something about girls, Mick. You see 'em in the winner's circle, but you'll never find horseshit on their shoes.”

“I thought fleetingly of Anne, how the faces changed but the act was always the same, the need was always the same, no one drew a line between the sex you bought and the love you made, and your body...”

“The course she was on was as fixed and unalterable as the trajectory of a bullet, but you could see she did not believe that. No one in the life ever believed it. They saw a dozen, a hundred, a tho...”

“Sex can be used either for self-affirmation or for self-transcendence either to intensify the ego and consolidate the social persona by some kind of conspicuous embarkation and heroic conquest, or...”

“He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer.”

“If she did experience sex--or something close to it--in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity.”

“Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.”

“A weapon does not decide whether or not to kill. A weapon is a manifestation of a decision that has already been made.”

“Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves.”