If words can be lethal weapons, I must provide them with an arsenal.

The problem with elections is that anybody who wants an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn’t have it. And anybody who does not want an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn’t have it, either. Government office should be received like a child’s Christmas present, with surprise and delight. Instead it is usually received like a diploma, an anticlimax that never seems worth the struggle to earn it.

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.

In my view, suicide is not really a wish for life to end.' What is it then?' It is the only way a powerless person can find to make everybody else look away from his shame. The wish is not to die, but to hide.

The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I'll overreach myself once too often and try to write a story that I'm just plain not talented or skilful enough to write. That's the dilemma every storyteller faces. It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.

The priests say that God created our souls, and that just puts us under the control of another puppeteer. If God created our will, then he's responsible for every choice we make.

The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.