Thank God for novelists. Thank God there are people willing to write everything down. Otherwise, so much would be forgotten.

Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

The economy is a thoughtless weather system.

There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.

The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration.

I love you, Eliza,” I said. She thought about it. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t like it.” “Why not?” I said. “It’s as though you were pointing a gun at my head,” she said. “It’s just a way of getting somebody to say something they probably don’t mean. What else can I say, or anybody say, but, ‘I love you, too’?

Nothing in this book is true.