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she projected the no-nonsense savvy and confidence of a business genius who was also a ninja assassin.
confident that intelligence mattered most, and that it guaranteed his eventual ascent to the heights—though when he considered any aspect of contemporary America, from business to politics to the arts to the sciences, he had to admit that flash, filigree, and flimflam defeated substance almost every time.
he had faith that this triumph of sizzle and sham was a transient condition, a blip, in the noble arc of this great nation that had for centuries mostly rewarded merit and hustle.
Benny was convinced that most people meant well, but sometimes they just didn’t think hard enough about the consequences of their actions.
“Blah. Life throws a lot of blah at us, and the mistake we make is taking it seriously.”
Charismatic people were born with charisma; it wasn’t something that could be learned or ordered from Amazon,
This situation would unfold just like it did in most monster movies. The gullible audience was made to wait and wait for the first full-on appearance of the creature—teased with a distorted shadow here, a blob of discarded slime over there, a low snarl off-screen—until the big reveal, whereupon the alien or the mutant or the beast risen out of the bowels of time would be a ho-hum compilation of all the monsters perpetrated by Hollywood in the past.
Evening traffic on Pacific Coast Highway was heavy, complicated by the fact that maybe 15 percent of the motorists were undocumented aliens with forged driver’s licenses and no firm understanding of the motor-vehicle laws of California, while another 15 percent were well-documented drunks and drug addicts who either had contempt for the motor-vehicle laws of California or thought they were on a yellow-brick road in Oz.
it’s not a bad thing to be wiser than our years, but it’s a little sad.”
Life was too short for anger, and rage accomplished nothing worthwhile.
Eventually he would come to realize that he was inebriated not as a delayed effect of aspirin dissolved in Coca-Cola, but because he had drunk the rarest of all wines, the wine of true friendship, which until now he had never known.
It wasn’t pleasure equal to an orgasm or eating filet mignon, but it was real.
most men these days are a mess. The sexual revolution relieved them of the burden of responsibility, not to mention chivalry.”
crashed onto the roof of the Explorer with a sound that suggested he would welcome the swift arrival of an ambulance.
“So it’s all about money and power to them?” “Not entirely. Some know they’re doing evil, but some don’t. In each case, they’re all the same—impatient, shortsighted, reckless fixers. Seeing themselves as fixers gives their lives meaning.” “Fixers?” “They’re people who can’t let anything be as it is. No matter how good the thing is, it’s never good enough for them. Everything they look upon seems either not quite right or wrong, and they’re convinced they know how to fix it. Most of the time, they utterly destroy it before rebuilding something less good from the rubble.”
I came to the conclusion that truth could be found only in good fiction,
“You have just said something of such profound ignorance that your ability to dress and feed yourself is called into question.
friends are what make life worth living;
a person, any person, is never at greater risk than when he or she believes in nothing other than himself or herself.
Retribution was not the same as revenge.
we possess the power to weave the lives that will bring us happiness if we’re wise enough to be nice, but not so nice that we’re foolish, and if we realize that our free will and creativity should be used with humility rather than to acquire power to oppress others.
