“The preliminaries were out of the way, the creative process was about to begin. The creative process, that mystic life force, that splurge out of which has come the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, th...”

“That was enough dialogue for a few pages - he had to get into some fast, red-hot action.There weren't any more hitches now. The story flowed like a torrent. The margin bell chimed almost staccato, ...”

“Home? What is home? Home is where a house is that you come back to when the rainy season is about to begin, to wait until the next dry season comes around. Home is where your woman is, that you com...”

“It was a brave city, she decided, eyeing them. Brave in its other sense; not courageous, so much as outstanding, commanding. It was too nice a town to die in. Though it had no honeysuckle vines and...”

“Every life is a mystery. And every story of every life is a mystery. But it is not what happens that is the mystery. It is whether it has to happen no matter what, whether it is ordered and ordaine...”

“Well, this is the hardest part to believe; look, you can suspend me if you want to, but it's the God's honest truth. This man Tompkins came all the way down to where I was bending over the body at ...”

“Stop fighting me!" he said, trying to pull on the arm he held.He was in a precarious position himself, straddling the rail as he tried to lean over far enough to get me and actually hold onto me.Le...”

“All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine...”

“Why is it that blood, rather than peace, sells?”

“Don't allow yourself to get into the habit of dressing carelessly when there is 'only' your husband to see you. Depend upon it he has no use for faded tea-gowns and badly dressed hair, and he abhor...”

“Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”

“Dress for the position you want, not the position you have.”

“Theres no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged.”

“Why do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled enemy?”

“He had also learned that there is no use murdering people; there are always so many left, and if you tried to murder them all you would never get anything else done.”