If I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross out. I'm not proud.

Everything in moderation. And that includes a couple of beers a day.

If you were seeing a lot of horseshit, there had to be a pony in the vicinity.

Shall there be truth between us, as two men? Not as friends, but as enemies and equals?

A little arrogance (or even a lot) isn't such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you different. Mine did. "Pride goeth before a fall, Stephen", she said... and then I found out - right around the age that is 19 x 2 - that eventually you fall down, anyway.

A great whispering noise began to rise in the woods on either side of the tracks, as if the forest had just noticed we were there and was commenting on it.

I wasn't a social drinker. I used to say that I didn't want to go to bars because they were full of assholes like me.