For me the world has always been more of a puppet show. But when one looks behind the curtain and traces the strings upward he finds they terminate in the hands of yet other puppets, themselves with their own strings which trace upward in turn, and so on. In my own life I saw these strings whose origins were endless enact the deaths of great men in violence and madness. Enact the ruin of a nation.

Looking over the country with those sunken eyes as if the world out there had been altered or made suspect by what he'd seen of it elsewhere. As if he might never see it right again. Or worse did see it right at last. See it as it had always been, would forever be.

Word gets around when the circus comes to town, don't it?

There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto.

Do you have any notion of how goddamned crazy you are?

They spoke less and less between them until at last they were silent altogether as is often the way with travelers approaching the end of a journey.

My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That's heaven. That's gold, and anything else is just a waste of time.