If you train people properly, they won't be able to tell a drill from the real thing. If anything, the real thing will be easier.

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

People who keep journals have life twice

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

The conversation of two people remembering, if the memory is enjoyable to both, rocks on like music or lovemaking. There is a rhythm and a predictability to it that each anticipates and relishes.