Men are brittle, I reckon. They don't bend into new shapes. They get broken into them. Crushed into them.

Every war carries within it the seeds of the next.

The world is all change, my friend. We all would like to go back, but the past is done. We must look forwards. We must change ourselves, however painful it may be, or be left behind.

One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.

Enough pain makes a coward of anyone.

A set of huge marble busts stared smugly down from on high: great merchants and financiers of Styrian history, by the look of them. Criminals made heroes by colossal success.

Are you entirely sure of that knot?' asked Morveer. 'There is no place in the plan for a lengthy drop'.'Twenty-eight strides', said Friendly.'What?''The drop'.A brief pause, 'That is not helpful'.

Memories sharp enough to cut himself on - the smells, the sounds, the feel of the air on his skin, the desperate hope and mad anger.

A man can forgive all manner of faults in beautiful women that in ugly men he find entirely beyond sufferance

I apologise, your Highness. Murder can be a painful business.

Bravery is the dead man’s virtue.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.

I'm still very blunt: If you want to be a writer, get a day job. The fact that I have actually been able to make a living at it is astonishing.

I am absolutely blessed and I'm very grateful for where I am today.

It is really important to have an obsessive need to construct something, to understand something from your own experience.

Do not make the mistake of holding your idea close to your chest… Submit it to the criticism of the judicious.

When my legs hurt, I say: “Shut up legs! Do what I tell you to do!

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.

He shook-a me up, he took me by surprise. He had a pickup truck, and the devil's eyes. He stared at me and I felt a change. Time meant nothing, never would again.

You can't really divorce yourself and your life from the world you live in.