“Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.”

Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.

If a fear cannot be articulated, it can’t be conquered.

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.

In the year 2025, the best men don’t run for president, they run for their lives.

Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life.

It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in a while exhilarating.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

Sometimes when you’re young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you’re living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.

A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.

Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.

Get busy living or get busy dying.

Go now. Our journey is done. And may we meet again, in the clearing, at the end of the path.

Love isn’t soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.

Wanting more is just a recipe for heartache.

A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God’s creatures.

A coward judges all he sees by what he is.