In a book, even the real bastards can't hurt you. And you can never loose a friend you make in a book. When you get to a sad part, no one's there to see you cry. Or wonder why you don't cry when you should.

The world is full of broken people. Splints, casts, miracle drugs, and time can't mend fractured hearts, wounded hearts, wounded minds, torn spirits.

I've since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.

You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.

Nothing gives us courage more readily than the desire to avoid looking like a damn fool.

I like to deal with EVERY aspect of our condition, and that means terror and humor in equal mix. Some books have more room for humor than others.

Some argued that the youth of today were poorly educated and insufficiently industrious, but one of them had sought to validate his generation by spending considerable time and effort chiseling an obscene word in the concrete picnic table, and he had spelled it correctly.