“Whatever lay ahead, he was glad to be alive.”

“He just kept picking them up and laying them down.”

“He lay back, put his arm over his eyes, and tried to hold onto the anger, because the anger made him feel brave. A brave man could think. A coward couldn't.”

“For a moment he felt a wild hope: perhaps this really was a nightmare. Perhaps he would awake in his own bed, bathed in sweat, shaking, maybe even crying . . . but alive. Safe. Then he pushed the thought away. Its charm was deadly, its comfort fatal.”

“Whatever!”

“Fault always lies in the same place: with him weak enough to lay blame.”

“If a book is not alive in the writer's mind, it is as dead as year-old horse shit.”