“The divine is always abominable."Houses Under The Sea”

“It is not the task of a writer to 'tell all,' or even to decide what to leave in, but to decide what to leave out. Whatever remains, that meager sum of this profane division, that's the bastard chimera we call a 'story.' I am not building, but cutting away. And all stories, whether advertised as truth or admitted falsehoods, are fictions, cleft from the objective facts by the aforementioned action of cutting away. A pound of flesh. A pile of sawdust. Discarded chips of Carrara marble. And what's left over."Houses Under The Sea”

“Assassination is almost always unthinkable to moral, thinking men until after a holocaust has come and gone.”

“...and for the first time in her life the tears that had always seemed to flow so easily, had always been there, eager to soothe any loss or ache, had refused to come, and somehow, that had been the most frightening thing of all.Used 'em all up on trifling shit, and now there's nothing left to cry. Like something her mother used to say or maybe a schoolteacher had said a long time ago. Stop bawling or someday you won't be able to cry, someone you love will die and you won't ever be able to stop hurting.”

“I am usually at my most brutally forthright when making shit up. That's the paradox of me.”

“So, here are my windows, stained all with me.”

“The horse is dead," she says and squeezes Soldier's hand. "From here we walk.""Anyone ever told you you're sort of a creepy kid?" Odd Willie asks."All the damn time," Emmie tells him. "I don't bother keeping count anymore.”