The schools wear the blank faces of war buildings, their windows blown blind by rocks or guns or mortars. Their plaster is an acne of bullet marks. The huts and small houses crouch open and vulnerable; their doors are flimsy pieces of plyboard or sacks hanging and lank. Children and chickens and dogs scratch in the red, raw soil and stare at us as we drive through their open, eroding lives.

If you can see a cop in your rear view mirror - no matter how far back the cop is - TURN! The sooner you turn the better. Your goal while driving should be to never let a law enforcement officer into a position where he can pull you over. Don't even let them come close enough to read your tag.

No more Guernicas, no more Auschwitzes, no more Hiroshimas, no more Setifs. Hooray! But what about the impossibility of living, what about this stifling mediocrity and this absence of passion? What about the jealous fury in which the rankling of never being ourselves drives us to imagine that other people are happy? What about this feeling of never really being inside your own skin?

All strive for victory. But not all understand what it truly is. To a soldier or pilot on the line, victory is surviving the current battle. To a politician, victory is an advantage one can bring to a bargaining table. To a warrior, victory is driving an enemy from the field of battle, or bringing him to surrender.Sometimes victory is greater than the warrior could ever hope for.Sometimes it is more than he is able to hear.

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.

You show up in Paris, and on the drive from the airport to the hotel you're like, 'This is so cool! I want to see something! I want to go to the Eiffel Tower!' And then you leave the next morning. You think, Oh, I didn't get to do anything. I tell people: I've been just about everywhere, but I've seen nothing.

When I was younger I would go to the airport with my friends and drive out 2 A.M., 3 A.M. in the morning and just hang out until sunrise watching planes fly in and fly out. Just sit there and dream about how, one day, that's going to be us in those flights. We're gonna be one of those people with places to go.

The two halves of my barely whole being rioted, chained in place and snarling in protest of the other’s presence. The bondage allowed them just close enough to drive each other to venomous rebellion, yet never permitting the chance to make contact; to fight. There would be no battle, no resolution. The end result sounded more and more like insanity. So this is love? It truly is mad…

Jeb dragged a protesting Anita toward a rapidly approaching sheriff’sfour-wheel drive. Blood dribbled through her fingers covering a gunshotwound on her arm. “Lady, I’ve never raised a hand to a woman in my life,but you are sorely testing my limits.”Chloe sympathized. If there was one thing she hated it was acondescending psycho bitch with bad taste in sweaters.