And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.

Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down.

I'm putting you in Dink Meeker's toon. From now on, as far as you're concerned, Dink Meeker is God." "Then who are you?" "The personnel officer who hired God.

I carry the seeds of death within me and plant them wherever I linger long enough to love.

It's the problem with age. You have all these rusty arguments, and no quarrel to use them in. My brain is a museum, but alas, I'm the only visitor, and even I am not terribly interested in the displays.