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.

Don't borrow trouble. The interest is too high.

Violence is the instinctive response to fear.

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.

I didn't mind giving up carnality, jewelry and red meat in return for comradeship and an afterlife.

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

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