“So Father Ring went off in the lofty mood of a man who has defended a principle at a great sacrifice to himself, but that very night he began to brood and he continued to brood till that sickly looking voluptuary of a ten-shilling note took on all the radiance and charm of a virgin of seventeen.”

“Lugh's decided to stick with bein mad at me. It's like traveling with a storm cloud. One of them that hangs low an heavy. The kind that builds an broods an keeps on buildin an brood in till everybody's got a sick headache.”

“The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself.”

“The shaman is not merely a sick man, or a madman; he is a sick man who has healed himself.”

“This man was a rogue, not because circumstances forced him to be a criminal but because he was born that way. He was probably conning his mother out of her milk the moment he could grin. He'd charm the clothes off a virgin in twenty minutes. And if the poor fool took him home, he'd drink her dad under the table, beguile her mother, charm her grandparents, and treat the girl to a night she'd never forget. In the morning, her dad would be sick with alcohol poisoning, the good silver would be missing together with the family car, and in a month, both the former virgin and her mother would be expecting.”

“The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone else. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn't it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him, but that he has invented the insult for himself, has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill--he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.”