“Over here where you past is your last breathe, your present is this breathe, and your future is your next breathe" Leon, War Letters”

“O little one, My little one, Come with me, Your life is done. Forget the future, Forget the past. Life is over: Breathe your last.”

“take a deep breath. Keep your body fully in the present and your mind in the recent future. Don't let the past get in your way.”

“This was what I came to found. The conquest of loneliness was the missing link that was one day going to make a decent novelist out of me. If you are out here and cannot close off the loves and hates of all that back there in the real world the memories will overtake you and swamp you and wilt your tenacity. Tenacity stamina... close off to everything and everyone but your writing. That s the bloody price. I don t know maybe it's some kind of ultimate selfishness. Maybe it's part of the killer instinct. Unless you can stash away and bury thoughts of your greatest love you cannot sustain the kind of concentration that breaks most men trying to write a book over a three or four year period.”

“I feel emotionally conflicted. It's like when your mother in-law drives off a cliff in your new Porsche.”

“If you're lucky enough to fall in love, that's one thing. Otherwise all that was ever truly beautiful to me was boyhood. It's the meal we sup on for the rest of our lives. Love puts the icing on life. But if you don't find it...you must call on your childhood memories over and over till you do.”

“Your war drum ain't / louder than this breath.”