If you've ever been homesick, or felt exiled from all the things and people that once defined you, you'll know how important welcoming words and friendly smiles can be.

I think we fought Vietnam for the benefits of civilization, and certainly we fought it to oppose authority. To show our authority, to show we weren't weak. Isn't that what Nixon kept saying? "We have to show the world that we're not weak." So of course what we ended up showing the world was that we were, yep, weak. 'Cause we couldn't beat these kids in black pajamas.

...belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one - probably a child - who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.

How many have to die before we will give up these dangerous toys?

I'm most afraid of losing my mind. You lose your identity, your sense of who you are, where you are.

Roland grabbed Jake and hauled him to his feet. “You came!” Jake shouted. “You really came!” “I came, yes. By the grace of the gods and the courage of my friends, I came.

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