“What kind of power was it if everybody knew that it would never be used? Better to say that it was not there, that it was no more than the power in the anus of the proud dog who tried to put out a furnace with his puny fart.... He turned the yam with a stick.”

“She wanted the one thing he knew he would never be able to give her: the freedom to join him in his battles. The thought of Savannah in any kind of danger robbed him of the very air he breathed.Gregori was at a loss. For all his knowledge, all his power, he was unable to say the right thing to make it better for her.”

“A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow.”

“The only thing that's worse than people who say "I am what I am" is people who say "I yam what I yam" while doing a Popeye imitation.”

“Don't trust children with edge tools. Don't trust man, great God, with more power than he has until he has learned to use that little better. What a hell we should make of the world if we could do what we would!”

“However low he may fall, a man can never deny himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful or even better fed than his companions.”