“After the nuclear war, kids like them’ll rule what’s left. It’ll be hell.”

“Their talk was endless, compulsive, and indulgent, sometimes sounding like the remains of the English language after having been hashed over by nuclear war survivors for a few hundred years.”

“What’s the point of keeping all your love inside. It’ll get stale if you don’t use it.”

“Think of what’s scary in a movie… The unseen, the imagined, is always more frightening than what’s graphically portrayed.The same holds true in your head. Face your fear, step into it, look at it head-on and it will diminish in stature, lose its hold on your imagination. But run, and it’ll grow wings, breather fire, and fly after you.”

“Maybe people with weird haircuts are like structures that become interesting only after being wrecked - Florida ranch houses half-fallen into sinkholes; bankrupt malls; civilizations after a nuclear war. I feel a warm tragic glow knowing I may be of interest to the world only once I have been destroyed.”

“There’s some of them’ll be nursing a guid scratch or two on their hinder-ends this night.… Man, it was a rout.’ ‘I imagine,’ said Piero Strozzi, his dark face impassive, ‘that my lord Grey’s army would not relish their defeat either.’ ‘Oh, aye, the English,’ said Buccleuch absently. ‘We are, after all, at war with them and not with the Kerrs,’ the Marshal said mildly.”