All right. Tell me what I'm looking at." From the improvised Rolling Stones T-shirt bag tied to my sash, Bob the Skull said, in his most caustic voice, "A giant pair of cartoon lips." I muttered a curse and fumbled with the shirt until one of the skull's glowing orange eye sockets was visible. A big goofy magic nerd!" Bob said.

I'd been in hairier situations than this one. Actually, it's sort of depressing, thinking how many times I'd been in them. But if experience had taught me anything, it was this: No matter how screwed up things are, they can get a whole lot worse.

There're things we keep hidden from one another. Things we hide from ourselves. Things that are kept hidden from us. And things no one knows. You always learn the damnedest things at the worst possible times.

The distinction between good and evil is meaningless if one does not have the freedom to choose between them.

You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.

Time after time, history demonstrates that when people don't want to believe something, they have enormous skills of ignoring it altogether.

There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more . . . secure.