A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers.

I have seen too many men go down, and I never permit myself to forget that one day, through accident or under the charge of a younger, stronger knight, I too will go down.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

On all levels American society is rigged. I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. It cannot survive on this basis.

Perhaps it takes courage to raise children.

The church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far West simultaneously. And each would have been horrified to think it was a different facet of the same thing. But surely they were both intended to accomplish the same thing: the singing, the devotion, the poetry of the churches took a man out of his bleakness for a time, and so did the brothels.

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.