The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. By fortune is an ugly, two-faced goddess. When you have lived with her handiwork for half a generation, you hardly notice anymore. You forget that this is not the way life has to be. You cease to marvel at just how much evil man con conjure by existing.

I'm an incurable romantic. The essence of romance is an unshakable conviction that next time will be different.

Evil is relative…You can’t hang a sign on it. You can’t touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger.

Books are nothing but repositories for those lies the author wants his reader to believe.

Every ounce of my cynicism is supported by historical precedent.

The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.

I believe in our side and theirs, with the good and evil decided after the fact, by those who survive. Among men you seldom find the good with one standard and the shadow with another.