I don’t think the ‘what’ distinguishes a good novel from a bad one but rather the ‘how.’
I don’t understand the process of imagination-though I know that I am very much at its mercy.
I write longhand and I type and I rewrite on the typed pages.
He was one of those people with lots of intelligence but no brains.
I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window, and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.
Let’s take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.
But how can one be warm alone?
Insanity is contagious.
When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering.
You wouldn’t be normal if you were never afraid. Even the bravest men experience fear. One of the biggest jobs we all face in combat is to overcome fear.
He was sick with lust and mesmerized with regret.
Under Colonel Korn’s rule, the only people permitted to ask questions were those who never did.
When I look up, I see people cashing in. I don’t see heaven or saints or angels. I see people cashing in on every decent impulse and every human tragedy.
I am miracle ingredient Z-247. I’m immense. I’m a real, slam-bang, honest-to-goodness, three-fisted humdinger. I’m a bona fide supraman.
Well, he died. You don’t get any older than that.
She was the epitome of stately sorrow each time she smiled.
Rise above principal and do what’s right.
Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.
He was never without misery, and never without hope.