Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.

Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.

The selective voluntary blindness of human beings allows them to ignore the moral consequences of their choices. It has been one of the species' most valuable traits, in terms of the survival of any particular human community.

The most noble title any child can have, Demosthenes wrote, is Third.

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views.

To have a choice at all is to be free - even when the choice is between two terrible things.