If you want to keep a friend, never test him.

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.

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

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.

Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all.

The power of an attitude is amazing

It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.