Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.

This was not some pretty little girl, coyly flirtatious, delicately stimulated. This was the mature female of the species, vivid, handsome and strong demanding that all the life within her be matched. Her instinct would detect any hedging, any dishonesty, any less than complete response to her - and then she would be gone for good.

If the cards are stacked against you, reshuffle the deck.

The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.

We were about to give up and call it a night when somebody threw the girl off the bridge.

A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.

New York is where it is going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We're nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won't snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each others