Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.

You’ll ache. And you’re going to love it. It will crush you. And you’re still going to love all of it.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to you and after which it all belongs to you.

Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?

Listen," I told him. "Don't be so tough so early in the morning. I'm sure you've cut plenty of people's throats. I haven't even had my coffee yet.

The whiskey warmed his tongue and the back of his throat, but it did not change his ideas any, and suddenly, looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he knew that drinking was never going to do any good to him now. Whatever he had now he had, and it was from now on, and if he drank himself unconscious when he woke up it would be there.

Rush, that most exciting perversion of life, the necessity of accomplishing something in less time than should be truly allowed for its doing.