I'm very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly disinclined to do so.

I was born with the devil in me,' [Holmes] wrote. 'I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.

I'm very perverse. If someone tells me I have to read a book, I'm instantly disinclined to do so.

No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.

There's something so relentless and foul about Hitler and his people, and the way things progressed from year to year. It just got to me in the strangest way.

Germans grew reluctant to stay in communal ski lodges, fearing they might talk in their sleep. They postponed surgeries because of the lip-loosening effects of anesthetic. Dreams reflected the ambient anxiety. One German dreamed that an SA man came to his home and opened the door to his oven, which then repeated every negative remark the household had made against the government.

. . . why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow.