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.

If reassurances could dull pain, nobody would ever go to the trouble of pressing grapes.

Nobody admires anyone else without qualification. If they do they're after an image, not a person.

As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It’s not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.

Throwing blondes at Locke Lamora was not unlike throwing lettuce at sharks.

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

The water caught the Falselight glimmer like layers of shifting, translucent mirrors and formed split-second works of art in the air, but men cursed it anyway, because it made their heads wet.