In times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational.

The reason men are so awful is because some woman has spoiled them.

Live through it," Call said. "That's all we can do.

Working- and Middle-class families sat down at the dinner table every night - the shared meal was the touchstone of good manners. Indeed, that dinner table was the one time when we were all together, every day: parents, grandparents, children, siblings. Rudeness between siblings, or a failure to observe the etiquette of passing dishes to one another, accompanied by "please" and "thank you," was the training ground of behavior, the place where manners began.

The tradition I was born into was essentially nomadic, a herdsmen tradition, following animals across the earth. The bookshops are a form of ranching; instead of herding cattle, I herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little paragraph-like clusters.

A man that will go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow.

Maybe you can make art out of unredeemed pain, but only if you're a genius -- Dostoyevsky perhaps.