"The achievement of maturity, psychologically speaking, might be said to be the realization and acceptance that we simply cannot live independently from the world, and so we must live within it, with w..."
- Paul Murray
"It used to be the smartest people didn't always want to be the richest people."
"Life is a precious commodity, Charles. It’s time you achieved your full potential and learned the true value of things.” “You’re talking like a Stalinist!” I cried. “People don’t get jobs to achieve t..."
"You always were such a worrier. It was as if you thought your worrying was all that held the world together, and if you stopped for a split second the whole thing would just fly apart."
"Capitalism needs war."
"If you do it in the bookies, it's a bet. . . . If you pay some 23-year-old in an Armani suit two hundred grand to go to the window for you, it's a derivative."
"Life makes fools of us all sooner or later. But keep your sense of humor and you'll at least be able to take your humiliations with some measure of grace. In the end, it's our own expectations that cr..."
"I don’t mind crack,” I said. “I like crack as much as the next man. But it’s not doing a thing for my nerves, and I already have a splitting headache— I say, I don’t suppose those heroin dealers carry..."
"None of us mentioned An Evening of Long Goodbyes, whose race had been so catastrophic that, by the end, neither Frank nor I could summon the will to gloat. He had begun badly, getting his head stuck i..."
"I don’t see Number Four though—oh.” Number Four, wearing an unflattering chartreuse jacket, was sitting alone on the chewed-up grass, despondently licking his testicles. “Hmm, I don’t know, Bel . ."