“Without the personal traumas, tribulations and ‘terribles’ that I have experienced throughout life, I wouldn’t have gained the information necessary to write this book and my life would never have taken the course it has.”

“The story I have told throughout my work life I could not have told as well without Clarence.”

“If I have to stay my whole life here, without ever experiencing there, I’ll evaporate.”

“There’s something about her—Cassel, I have met many evil men and women in my life. I have made deals with them, drank with them. I have done things that I myself have difficulty reconciling—terrible things. But I have never known anyone like your mother. She is a person without limits—or if she has any, she hasn’t found them yet. She never needs to reconcile anything.”

“Tucking my nose into a book makes me completely oblivious to my surroundings. I would have made a terrible spy in the army--the first person to hand me a novel would have been able to shoot my head clean off without me noticing.”

“Dedicated to the memory of MY FATHER. For if I had not believed that he would have wished me to give such help as I could toward making his life's work of service to mankind, I should never have been led to write this book.”