“Life was simple when you were a Shield Bug.”

“And mine a shielded heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.”

“During bombing raids in Iraq, the media liked to say that Saddam Hussein used people as human shields. That's not accurate. Although it's true they were used as shields, the fact is they were humans already. So if these humans were used as shields, they were human shields. They weren't being used as human shields. Got that?”

“My grandmother used to say life was so much easier when you were simple-minded.
It’s taken me almost my whole life to understand what she meant.”

“Existence was really very simple when you did what you were told.”

“He hadn’t been religious. He’d believed that death was it. When you died you were dead, like a squished bug or drowned rat, and your immortality was in the minds of those you left behind.”

“Theres always somebody bugging you. They just wont leave you alone. No matter how simple things are there always some sonofabitch complicating things and fucking with your life. Jesus, this fucking world stinks. People are nothing but a bunch of shits. A rotten bunch of shits. They always want to screw you.”

“The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone.”

“And if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours, her life simple and strange as a bird's life, gay in the morning, restless all day, tired at sundown? Her heart simple and willful as a bird's heart?”

“My bugs don't have bugs.”