Quotes About Author

International law, I think, and very good at it. I think I might have read something about a deal with Poland or Czechoslovakia—one of those places where they eat potatoes and dress badly—but I can't remember which.

We can't have Americans being murdered in this city, not with the state of tourism this year. Do you understand that?

Nor has the extent of your prosperity produced any change in you, except that it has given you the power of doing good to the utmost of your wishes. And whilst all these circumstances increase the veneration which other persons feel for you, with respect to myself, they have made me so bold, as to wish to become more familiar.

knew, yet his behaviour had suggested that his information was of

from exerting his full force out of consideration for what it would do to Brunetti's hand.

Logic was my favorite class in school. I like it because it's a way to see HOW what someone says is nonsense.

Yet my longing for her was like a bad cold that had hung on for years despite my conviction that I was sure to get over it at any moment.

Though Julian could be marvelously kind in difficult circumstances of all sorts, I sometimes got the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture.

By happy contrast, Hobie's whole day revolved around dinner.

The ceilings had set off a ghostly echo, giving all that desperate hilarity the quality of a memory even as I sat listening to it, memories of things I'd never known.

had I stayed in California I might have ended up in a cult or at the very least practicing some weird dietary restriction.

In my own humorless state I failed to see anything except what I construed as certain tragic similarities between Gatsby and myself.

worrying, Potter! Don't stand there and look so unhappy! If we lose, we win, and if we win, we win! Everything is good!

In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way. I

You're a Homeric scholar?' I might have said yes, but I had the feeling he'd be glad to catch me in a mistake and he would be able to do it easily. 'I like Homer' I said weakly. He regarded me chill distaste. 'I love Homer' He said.

the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless... I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.

From the sound of it, had I stayed in California I might have ended up in a cult or at the very least practicing some weird dietary restriction.

the atmosphere it breathed was like the light-rinsed airiness of a wall opposite an open window.

We'd done our errands, not to mention an awful lot of cocaine in the parking lot of Burger King . . .

Even if you don't like Poe—he invented the detective story. And science fiction. In essence, he invented a huge part of the twentieth century.

I don't care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here's the truth: life is catastrophe.

In Paradise Lost he pushes English to its very limits but I think no language without noun cases could possibly support the structural order he attempts to impose.

As much as I enjoyed her company I was slightly uneasy in her presence; not because of any lack of charm of kindness on her part, but because of a too-strong wish to impress her on mine

Well, she doesn't have anything to do with it, Richard, you're just like that guy in 'Dragnet' that always wants the facts.