A hurt body and mind aren't just like a dictatorship; they are a dictatorship. There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.

And didn't they say that, although curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought the beast back?

I have no plans to get an iPad. I know it will do more things than my Kindle, but I don’t want more things. If I want other stuff - movies, TV shows, weather forecasts, the forthcoming Josh Ritter album - I have my Mac.

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.

American grammar doesn't have the sturdiness of British grammar, but it has its own scruffy charm.

I've put men to death-men with supposedly immortal souls-that looked dumber than that mouse

Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.