To see and feel one's beloved naked for the first time is one of life's pure, irreducible epiphanies. If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include that truth of contact or be forever hollow. To make love to the one true person who deserves that love is one of the few absolute rewards of being a human being, balancing all of the pain, loss, awkwardness, loneliness, idiocy, compromise, and clumsiness that go with the human condition. To make love to the right person makes up for a lot of mistakes.

Fate and victory shift ... now this way, now that way -- like a line of unarmored men under a hail of enemy arrows.

If our god's work is to be done in our time, we must do it ourselves.

All violence flows from the same source ... the need for power. Power is the only true morality ... the only deathless god, and the appetite for violence is its only commandment.

Seduction... was both a science and art - a blend of skill, discipline, proximity, and opportunity. Mostly proximity.

Artists recognize other artists as soon as the pencil begins to move.

If there is a true religion in the universe, it must include the truth of contact or be forever hollow.