A powerful flight of the imagination . . . an entirely enjoyable reading experience, wrought by a pair of writers noted for excellence.

It is a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you.

I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.

There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.

If the liberal arts do nothing else they provide engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace.

Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.

I watched the spinning stars, grateful, sad and proud, as only a man who has outlived his destiny and realizes he might yet forge himself another, can be.