The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.

How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?

When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.

The best thing about being a best-selling writer is being a best-selling writer. More seriously, today I can write full time and pay the bills.

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily.

Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.

Hackberry Holland's greatest fear was his fellow man's propensity to act collectively, in militaristic lockstep, under the banner of God and country. Mobs did not rush across town to do good deeds, and in Hackberry's view, there was no more odious taint on any social or political endeavor than universal approval.