“Nature is energy and struggle. It is what exists without any promise. If it can be thought of by man as an arena, a setting, it has to be thought of as one which lends itself as much to evil as to ...”

“Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form.”

“A man's death makes everything certain about him. Of course, secrets may die with him. And of course, a hundred years later somebody looking through some papers may discover a fact which throws a t...”

“My heart born nakedwas swaddled in lullabies.Later alone it worepoems for clothes.Like a shirtI carried on my backthe poetry I had read.So I lived for half a centuryuntil wordlessly we met.From my ...”

“Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. Compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural.”

“The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.”

“Lucian's father had warned him to fear idle men. Without the pride gained from a good day's work, they were left to their vices and the doubts that crowded their head. Their hatred. Their envy.”

“She was wearing her fuzzy pink hat and she was happy, which was so obnoxious. She'd become one of those people who waltzed through life without so much as a split end, and I was still one of those ...”

“We may be just a drop in the ocean, but even the ocean envies the depth of our love.”

“Take the glamour out of war! I mean, how the bloody hell can you do _that_? Go and take the glamour out of a Huey, go take the glamour out of a Sheridan...Can _you_ take the glamour out of a Cobra,...”

“She didnt think that by hanging a chandelier from the ceiling you made a room with a chandelier. She felt youd made another world, which you could slip in and out of by some vague process of applic...”

“So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was as simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.But...”