“It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.”

“You may be astonished that in such a short period of time I could go from weeping over the muffled killing of a flying fish to gleefully bludgeoning to death a dorado. I could explain it by arguing that profiting from a pitiful flying fish’s navigational mistake made me shy and sorrowful, while the excitement of actively capturing a great dorado made me sanguinary and self-assured. But in point of fact the explanation lies elsewhere. It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.”

“a person can get used to anything if given enough time”

“Once a person was asked to step into this brutal century, anything could happen”

“You can get used to eating breakfast with a man in a fedora. You can get used to anything, my mother was in the habit of saying.”

“Talk's the way to kill it. Anything gets boring if you talk about it enough, even death.”