First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.-Roland Deschain, of Gilead

She ran out of her marriage the way a woman can run out of a pair of sandals when she decides to let go and really dash.

Our memories have voices, too. Often sad ones that clamor like raised arms in the dark.

Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.

When all else fails, give up and go to the library.

If there's one American belief I hold above all others, it's that those who would set themselves up in judgment on matters of what is "right" and what is "best" should be given no rest; that they should have to defend their behavior most stringently. ... As a nation, we've been through too many fights to preserve our rights of free thought to let them go just because some prude with a highlighter doesn't approve of them

If you were a real fascistic society and you had a vocal minority that was shouting, "Stop this, stop that, stop the other thing," what you would say is, "Let's give them all the drugs they want." In a lot of states, something very much like that happened. They lowered the drinking age to eighteen and said, "Get juiced."