You're one third bad intentions,one third pure avarice,and one eighth sawdust.What's left,I'll credit,must be brains.

When the sky’s falling, I take shelter under bullshit.

Maxilan, darling." Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. "I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smoulder. Come, take me now! Jean won't mind; he'll avert his eyes like a gentleman.

It was strange, how readily authority could be conjured with nothing but a bit of strutting jackassery.

Advice,' Doña Vorchenza chuckled. 'Advice. The years play a sort of alchemical trick, transmuting one's mutterings to a state of respectability. Give advice at forty and you're a nag. Give it at seventy and you're a sage.

I think it’s fairly common for writers to be afflicted with two simultaneous yet contradictory delusions, the burning certainty that we’re unique geniuses, and the constant fear that we’re witless frauds who are speeding toward epic failure.

What is government but theft by consent?