The author can always delve into his own personality and find aspects of himself with which he can dress his characters.

He moved in a way that suggested he was attempting the world speed record for the nonchalant walk.

Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals

"And what would humans be without love?" Rare, said Death.

but what should we do when the highborn and wealthy take to crime? Indeed, if a poor man will spend a year in prison for stealing out of hunger, how high would the gallows need to be to hang the rich man who breaks the law out of greed?

He was, he would be the first to admit, a coward, an incompetent, and not even very good at being a failure.

It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary gray goo if its only real purpose was, for example, to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys.