The trials of living and the pangs of disease make even the short span of life too long.

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

Men trust their ears less than their eyes.

The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy.

Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.

In peace sons bury fathers, but war violates the order of nature, and fathers bury sons.

Egypt is the gift of the Nile.

Where wisdom is called for, force is of little use.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

It is better to be envied than pitied.

All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

Readers will be swept up by the drama and fast pace of this powerful debut novel.

cadavers' intestines hanging like a parade streamers off the sides of tables, skulls bobbing in boiling pots, organs strewn on the floor being eaten by dogs.....

Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up.

I don't like top hats, white ties, and tails.

There's probably a bunch of Power Stripe floating through the Def Jam offices right now.

Better a superstitious believer than a rational unbeliever.

I had given up my seat before, but this day, I was especially tired. Tired from my work as a seamstress, and tired from the ache in my heart.

It's taboo for me to date wrestlers [on her father's opinion of her dating wrestlers].

There is justice in hell, but sin is the most unjust thing. It would rob God of his glory, Christ of his purchase, the soul of its happiness.

I'm a full-time mom. I've never felt as prepared, as before maternity.