Carpe Jugulum

Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just . . . is just bein’ nice

Hard to have faith, ain’t it, when you read too many books

Mythology’s just the folktales of people who won ’cos they had bigger swords

With age comes doubt.

When the midnight hour lies on the glass like a big cocktail onion, there’s always an extra edge to the laughter.

There are some people who could turn even the most amiable character into a bully and he seemed to be one of them.

But the harder you stared into the brightness the harsher it burned into you until, at last, the temptation picked you up and bid you turn around to see how long, rich, strong and dark, streaming away behind you, your shadow had become

The reward for toil had been more toil. If you dug the best ditches, they gave you a bigger shovel.

You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself.

The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed.