"Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It's all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary."

"Leave this island before you can't."

"If you're not drunk and half naked by this point, you're not paying attention."

"“... you people with your ex-wives and stepchildren, your blended families and failed marriages, you’ve ruined your world and now you want to ruin mine...”"

"Dear sweet Peter. Can you feel this?"

"Today is the longest day of the year-but anymore, everyday is. The weather today is increasing concern followed by fullblown dread. The man calling from Long Beach, he says his bathroom is missing."

"What you don't understand you can make mean anything."

"There is nothing special in the world. Nothing magic. Just physics."

"See one coronation and you’ve seen them all. Sounds cynical and probably is, especially when the principal is your best friend and his queen’s your inadvertent lover."

"The biggest bar to understanding is the interpretation they put on each other’s doings."

"The doorway to the left—the one that let upon my bedroom—seemed to be outlined in red and pulsing. Did that mean I was supposed to avoid it or rush in there? That’s the trouble with mystical advice."

"“Why does there always have to be a reason?” he said. “The alternative is irrationality,” I replied."

"I held out my hand, and he shook his head. “Let’s not get carried away,” he told me. “If my word’s no good without a handshake, it’s no good with one, is it?”"

"“I guess I have peculiar feelings about little things—like the value of life.” “Indignation is cheap. Even Albert Schweitzer’s reverence for life didn’t include the tapeworm, the tsetse fly, the cancer cell.”"

"“You can make me play,” I said, “but you cannot make me choose. My will is my own.”"

"No one likes to be a butt of the universe’s jokes."

"That’s life: Trust and you’re betrayed; don’t trust and you betray yourself. Like most moral paradoxes, it places you in an untenable position. And it was too late for my normal solution. I couldn’t walk away from the game."

"“You don’t trust anybody, do you?” “Family tradition,” I replied, “backed up by recent experience.”"

"“Do you know something I don’t?” I asked. “Many things,” she replied."

"“It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere,” I heard her say, “if you are a fool in all places.”"

"“It’s kind of you to want to do me a favor,” I said, “but at times such as this, one must be excused for checking the price tag.”"

"Would she really behave as Luke said, though? It made a sort of sense, but then people seldom keep company with rationality at times when they should."

"We will learn whatever we can, of course. Power is power, and represents a threat until it is understood."

"If you had a choice between the ability to detect falsehood and the ability to discover truth, which one would you take?"

"“Another relative coming to visit,” Random said. “Why couldn’t have been an only child?”"

"So, “What do you want, anyway?” I called out. Immediately, that metallic voice replied, “Your blood, your soul, your mind and your body.” “What about my stamp collection,” I hollered back. “Do I get to keep the First Day Covers?”"

"As I straightened my legs and strained upward with even greater exertion, I wondered how many people fail in robust undertakings because of sudden lower back problems. I guess they’re the ones you don’t hear about."

"This was my father’s tomb—well, cenotaph—built long ago when he had been presumed dead. It had amused him considerably to be able to visit the place later on. Now, of course, its status might well have changed. It could be the real thing now. Would this cancel the irony or increase it?"

"You wish perhaps to discuss the philosophy of revenge with me now?"

"I had a feeling that I already had the answer but that I would be unable to realize it until I had formulated the proper question."

"I do not like being manipulated or coerced. My reflexive attempt to do something other than what is desired of me then feels forced also."

"She dismounted and let her horse nibble a few blades of grass. I did the same. Dismounted, that is."

"And what did she offer in its place? Airy nothings and classified motives... Which could well mean she was telling the truth. Disdaining the use of a workable lie and offering something more cumbersome in its place would seem the mark of genuine honesty."

"We never used to word “love,” though it must have run through her mind on occasion, as it did through mine. It was, I suppose, that I didn’t love her enough to trust her, and then it was too late."

"Changing from something nominally human to something rare and strange—perhaps monstrous to some, perhaps frightening—and then back again is a concept some may find repugnant. They shouldn’t. We all of us do it every day in many different ways, don’t we?"

"Life is full of doors that don’t open when you knock, equally spaced amid those that open when you don’t want them to."

"“Time,” he said. “There’s always either too much time or not enough.”"

"I shook out my cloak and brushed myself off. I traveled for perhaps half an hour then, leaving the place far behind me, before I halted and took my breakfast in a hot, bleak valley smelling faintly of sulfur. As I was finishing, I heard a crashing noise. A horned and tusked purple thing went racing along the ridge to my right pursued by a hairless orange-skinned creature with long claws and a forked tail. Both were wailing in different keys. I nodded. It was just one damned thing after another."

"She pouted slightly for a moment, then released my arm. “Now you know what an absolute monarchy is,” she explained to Bill. “You can see how power corrupts.” “I was corrupt before I had power,” Random said, “and rich is better.”"

"When inspiration is silent reason tires quickly."

"Why couldn’t you want a divorce like any sensible young man?"

"“I’m talking about the meaning of life. You know that.” I shook my head. “Only a fool believes that life has but one meaning,” I said."

"“Power is like money,” I said. “You can usually get it if you’re competent and it’s the only thing you want in life.”"

"“There’s nothing to any of it,” he said. “There are an infinite number of ways of lying to yourself, into rationalizing things into something they are not. I guess that I wanted magic, and there is no real magic in the world.”"

"It was a pain in the ass waiting around for someone to try to kill you. But it was April 30, and of course it would happen as it always did."

"Good-bye and hello, as always."

"I wish that you had never been born and, failing that, that you had died sooner. Enough! It diminishes me to reflect so. Be dead and trouble my thinking no more."

"I felt that I had done my duty. Nothing drove me now. I had run out of causes and was as close as I might ever be to peace. With all this behind me, I felt that if I had to die now, it was all right. I would not protest quite so loudly as I would have at any other time."

"My children, I cannot say that I am entirely pleased with you, but I suppose this works both ways."