The society whose citizens are willing to stand and fight is the one with the best chance of surviving long enough for history to even notice.

Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was gross insult.

Intellectual understanding does not always bring visceral belief.

Of course, I also hear from critics who detest what I do, and while sometimes I feel rather proud of having made various the loathsome people or groups angry, at other times I wonder why I put up with such grief.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

I buy way too many books.

You killed more people than anybody in history." "Be the best at whatever you do, that's what my mother always told me.