Mosquito [...] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton." Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive.

When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.

I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.

When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?

When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.

The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!