I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat. - Truman Capote

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.

...all his prayers of the past had been simple concrete requests: God, give me a bicycle, a knife with seven blades, a box of oil-paints. Only how, how, could you say something so indefinite, so meaningless as this: God, let me be loved.

She beckoned to him, shining and silver, and he knew he must go: unafraid, not hesitating, he paused only at the garden's edge, as though he'd forgotten something, he stopped and looked back at the bloomless, descending blue, at the boy he had left behind.