You'll call me damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children. How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life's lessons.

You know what circumcision is, Private?

We all suffer from dreams

There are seasons of our lives when nothing seems to be happening, when no smoke betrays a burned town or homestead and few tears are shed for the newly dead. I have learned not to trust those times, because if the world is at peace then it means someone is planning war.

At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

The existence of tricks does not imply the absence of magic.

We make children and wealth and amass land and build halls and assemble armies and give great feasts, but only one thing survives us. Reputation.