People, alas, are more impressed by statistics than they are by ideas.

Violence is the instinctive response to fear.

Perfect young men don't get murdered, they don't even get born.

That's what a conscience is made of, scar tissue ... Little strips and pieces of remorse sewn together year by year until they formed a distinctive pattern, a design for living.

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines.

the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.

The world of maps is nice and flat and simple. It has areas for people and areas for monsters. What a shock it is to discover the world is round and the areas merge and nothing separates the monsters and ourselves; that we are all whirling around in space together and there isn't even a graceful way of falling off.