But we’re assassins: when we make mistakes, people live.
Ah, you poor fools, walking so tall and haughty with your guns and your sticks and your wide belts full of gear like the second coming of Batman, sitting in your little cars full of mechanized fear as you reach for your little radios at the first sign of anything more worrisome than a jaywalker.
It is always man’s ideas which drive his actions. This has, at times, resulted in great evil; but as we look around us, we cannot doubt that it has resulted in greater good.
Don’t explain why it works; explain how you use it.
I’m told I’m very charming when people do what I want.
A stupid person can make only certain, limited types of errors; the mistakes open to a clever fellow are far broader. But to the one who knows how smart he is compared to everyone else, the possibilities for true idiocy are boundless.
Why do you work so hard to make yourself disliked? I should think you’d find it happens enough on its own without putting yourself to any extra trouble.
It’s just that no one wants to be the one being rescued, we all want to do the rescuing.
One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it’s kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling.
The novel should be understood as a structure built to accommodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff.
I’d rather be running the game than playing it.
That’s what does it – that moment where you think you’re lost, and then discover that you’re not, that you’ve never really left. There’s something that happens in that incredible tiny no-time, and that something is like the revelation of learning.
I tend to close my eyes when I look at people anymore.
Appropriate action means to advance your own goals, without unintentional harm to anyone else.
Staring into the dragon’s maw, one quickly learns wisdom.
I guess there’s just a time for doing dumb things.
You can’t put something together again unless you’ve torn it apart first.
Plan. Yes. Good idea. I should come up with a plan.
True heroics must be carefully planned – and strenuously avoided.
Everybody generalizes from one example. At least, I do.