Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child.

The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.

We know what we got, and we don't care whether you know it or not.

... a man is a very important thing-maybe more important than a star.

I'll want to hear,' Samuel said. 'I eat stories like grapes.

I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age.