If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?

Usually, you don't know where a book comes from ... it's just there, some kind of an itch that you can't quite scratch.

Hard weather, says the old man. So let it be. Wrap me in the weathers of the earth, I will be hard and hard. My face will wash rain like the stones.

In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was. It is supposed to be true that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. I don't believe knowing can save us. What is constant in history is greed and foolishness and a love of blood and this is a thing that even God--who knows all that can be known--seems powerless to change.

He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.

Every day is a lie. But you are dying. That is not a lie.

In history there are no control groups. There is no one to tell us what might have been. We weep over the might have been, but there is no might have been. There never was.