All war is fratricide, and there is therefore an infinite chain of blame that winds its circuitous route back and forth across the path and under the feet of every people and every nation, so that a...

You cannot find someone who does not want to be found.

No, he is not tactful, yet have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet, at the same time, beautiful?

It's so easy that when you begin you can't stop. You just go on and on doing it always.

It was more amusing when I wasn't supposed to do it... Like everything else in life

There is a force of persuasion in the scent, stronger than that of words, glances, feelings, and will. It cannot be rejected, it penetrates our lungs like the air we breathe, it overflows within us,...

Perhaps thee will best understand what Abigail is like if I tell thee that when she quilts she prefers to stitch in the ditch, hiding her poor stitches in the seams between the blocks.

Handle with care - everything - even the predators.

How quickly compassion invades noble hearts!

Well it is said that neither love nor power Admit a rival, even for an hour.

"... I hid myself between two leaves of sorrel, and there discharged the necessities of nature."

Odd things happen in a battle, and the human heart has strange and gruesome depths and the human brain still stranger shallows;

And now leave me in peace for a bit! I don't want to answer a string of questions while I am eating. I want to think!

You exist in a half-world suspended between two superstructures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your strength, and unless you can learn how...

You can crab over the morning paper and kick the shins of the guy in the next seat at the movies and feel mean and discouraged and sneer at the politicians but there are a lot of nice people in the...

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights...

I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.

Life appears as a long nightmare in this reasoning, from which one can be freed through death, which would then be a kind of awakening. But awakening to what? That irresoluble moment of throwing...

The fiercest anger of all, the most incurable, Is that which rages in the place of dearest love.

That of dealing death, of loosing another man's soul and sending it down to hell. You want to savor it, to twist the blade deeper and pull the man's heart and guts out upon the iron point of your...

Everyone is an actor. In the end, everyone wants applause.

Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by...

It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that the soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil. Who is there more impious than a backsliding priest? Who more...

I see hundreds of men come by on the road and on the ranches with their bindles on their back and that same damn thing in their heads. Hundreds of them. They come, and they quit and go on; and every...

He was wondering if there was some cryptic, cultish mark on his door that told all the crazy people he'd have trouble saying no.

Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt.

I want to sleep with you. Now, tonight, and at any time you may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin, your mouth, your hands... -I want you like an animal... or a whore.

Bear gifts if you can't bear anything else.

It was a punishing whim on my part, a nasty, selfish twist of the knife.

he's always been moody. Even when he was a baby he was like a cat. All snuggly one second and then the next, he'd be looking at you like he had no idea who you were.