If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends.

...I felt fear enter the halls of my mind, but I didn't give it the keys to every room.

Always, the eye sees more than the mind can comprehend, and we go through life self-blinded to much that lies before us. We want a simple world, but we live in a magnificently complex one, and rather than open ourselves to it, we perceive the world through filters that make it less daunting.

Out of sight above the house, the mirror moon reflected the sun of a day not yet dawned, shining the pale light of tomorrow on the yard and on the paper birches.

Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic.

I need those nukes, the chief said. I need them, I need them right now. I don't want to be an enabler, sir. I'd rather get you into a twelve step program to help you break this addiction.

These days, people spent too much time striving to understand their feelings - and then ended up with none that were genuine.