Oh no, real life is escape. The great terrors, the horrors--we hope--of your life come from reading fiction.

None of us could be happy for long, doing nothing.

This emotion I'm feeling now, this is love, right?" "I don't know. Is it a longing? Is it a giddy stupid happiness just because you're with me?" "Yes," she said. "That's influenza," said Miro. "Watch for nausea or diarrhea within a few hours.

Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself.

What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.

Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan.

Americans love to pick up, move on, start over. But instead of being somebody fresh and new, they become somebody lonely and lost, or, far too often these days, they become nobody at all, a machine for satisfying hunger, without loyalty or honor or duty.