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.

Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.

Members of the Academy are mostly urban people. We are an urban nation. We are not a rural nation. It's not easy even to get a rural story made.

A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough. --Augustus "Gus" McCrae

Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.

I'm glad I've been wrong enough to keep in practice. . . You can't avoid it, you've got to learn to handle it. If you only come face to face with your own mistakes once or twice in your life it's bound to be extra painful. I face mine every day--that way they ain't usually much worse than a dry shave.

Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.