A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river.

Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.

The candle aimed its spark of light at heaven, like an artist who consumes himself to become divine.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed

Do you think it's funny to be so serious when I'm not even out of high school?' she asked. 'I don't see how it could be any other way,' said Lee. 'Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn't in time.

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot.