When a young writer comes up to me with an ambitious idea for a 20-book series, I usually tell him to maybe try something smaller to start off with.

But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.

Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up.

Living was a dangerous past-time, and often quite painful—but there was also such joy in living, such beauty, things that one would otherwise never see, never experience, never know. The risk of pain and loss was a part of living.

No rest for the wicked, Bob, and that means that we can't slack off either, or they'll outwork us.

You must be Warden Ramirez." This is the part where I got nervous. Ramirez loved women. Ramirez never shut up about women. Well, he never shut up about anything in general, but he'd go on and on about various conquests and feats of sexual athleticism and— "A virgin?" Lara blurted. Lara blurted. She turned her head to me, grey eyes several shades paler than they had been, and very wide. "Really, Harry, I'm not sure what to say. Is he a present?

We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain.