"The dilemma of the critic has always been that if he knows enough to speak with authority, he knows too much to speak with detachment." (<i>A Quali… - Raymond Chandler

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that.

She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might,if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me.

Then there were no more houses, just the burnt foothills and the cement ribbon and a sheer drop on the left into the coolness of a nameless canyon, and on the right heat bouncing off the seared clay bank at whose edge a few unbeatable wild flowers clawed and hung on like naughty children who won’t go to bed.