“Author describes that a failed sea captain, "vacillated miserably between self-recrimination and defensiveness.”

“He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but after all most of them live on predigested food. The incident or character may be from life, but the writer usually interprets it in terms of the last book he read. For instance, suppose he meets a sea captain and thinks he's an original character. The truth is that he sees the resemblance between the sea captain and the last sea captain Dana created, or who-ever creates sea captains, and therefore he knows how to set this sea captain on paper”

“I felt the need to clarify we were there for the self defense class, in case he also taught about dog breeding or riding the high seas.”

“I don't like ferocious irony but rather the kind that vacillates between disappointment and hope. Okay?”

“It didn't matter. If she was to have any hope of saving Bellusdeo and Maggaron now, she needed to finish what she started; the anger and the self-recrimination would just have to wait. She'd no doubt she'd return to it later; unlike laundry, she'd never left self-recrimination undone.”

“In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.”