[I]f you want to learn kung fu, you must learn to break bricks with your head. If you want to be a fiction writer, you must learn to stare at a blank page with nothing but your name on the top without flinching, without weeping, without getting up to get a beer to fortify your faltering courage.

Penny was a very pretty, witty and brave girl, as bold as a Marine platoon storming Iwo Jima.

Reasoning by analogy is like filling balloons with liquid helium. It won't fly.

Apparently these new rulers of the world did not indulge in any drinking or smoking to soften their moods when they met, which Menelaus knew to be a big mistake. The Congress of the United States, back before the Disunion, always met sober, and look at what had come of that.