To capture the pawn, threaten the queen.

The world is what it is and won't be bargained with.

Some things are taken away from you, some you leave behind and some you carry with you, world without end.

To fire a bullet into the heart or brains of one's fellow man even a fellow man striving to do the same to you creates what might be called an unassimilable memory: a memory that floats on daily life the way an oil stain floats on rainwater. Stir the rain barrel, scatter the oil into countless drops, disperse it all you like, but it will not mix; and eventually the slick comes back, as loathsomely intact as it ever was.

Promises were like bad checks, easy to write and hard to cash.

I won't put my ignorance on an altar and call it God. It feels like idolatry, like the worst kind of idolatry.

There's no drug that'll make a stupid man smart.