All you imagined, no matter how wild it might seem, was no more than a disguised version of what you already knew.

Semi-automatic s have only two purposes. One is so owners can take them to the shooting range once in a while, yell yeehaw, and get all horny at the rapid fire and the burning vapor spurting from the end of the barrel. Their other use-their only other use-is to kill people.

How many times, over how many years, had he—a grown man—asked for the mercy of another chance? He was suddenly so sick of himself, so revolted, that he could have groaned aloud.

That's something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

The terror, which would not end for another 28 years-if it ever did end-began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

I write in the mornings, in the bright daylight. But I get most of my good ideas after the sun has gone down and the dark is on the land.

Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.