Pirates have always fascinated me.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

Such are the brutalities of war

History is unkind to those it abandons, and can be equally unkind to those who make it.

Do not try to live your children's lives out of your own frustrations.

And suddenly, like light in darkness, the real truth broke in upon me; the simple fact of Man, which I had forgotten, which had lain deep buried and out of sight; the idea of community, of unity.

Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.

He who flees at the right time can fight again.

As soon as you say, "are you feeling X because I ..." Then the Jackal starts to salivate because he can educate the person that he's the cause of his pain.

I like America. I think it's pretty cool.

Days of trouble must be days of prayer.

Hey, White, you know where your loyalties are? Right here. The old pinstripes. No! You never wore them... So you have a right to sing the blues.