“Gosh. The subjunctive is always the first to go.”

“Human life, Borges said, is a cascade of possible directions, and we take only one, or we perceive that we take only one—which is how novels are written, too. You start with a blank page, and the first word opens up possibilities for the second word. If your first word is Call, those second two or three could be a doctor or it could be me Ishmael. It could be Call girls on Saturday nights generally cost more than . . . The second sentence opens up a multitude of third sentences, and on we go through that denseness of choices taken and choices not taken, swinging our machetes.”

“If war's first victim is truth, its second is clerical efficiency.”

“Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most.”

“To get the crowd to cry Hosanna, you must first ride to town on an ass.”

“Trees're always a relief, after people.”

“Oh, bein' young ain't easy 'cos ev'rythin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' you're puzzlin'n'anxin' it for the first time.”