“Loss either teaches you to persist in the face of suffering, or hardens you into a bitter cynic. Sometimes, it does a little of both.”

“Harry Dresden: Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”

“Women's Lib? Poor little things. They always look so unhappy. Have you noticed how bitter their faces are?”

“If I could calm or restrain you
for the sake of pity
save the pistol
save the cynic's tongue
save the cool white stare
treat me to an honest face sometime”

“…you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”

“They had both noticed that a life of dissipation sometimes gave to a face the look of gaunt suffering spirituality that a life of asceticism was supposed to give and quite often did not.”

“Every day, no matter how you fight it, you learn a little more about yourself, and all most of it does is teach humility.”

“Born in a generation that thinks cynical and disenchanted is cool,
sometimes I'm a little off the beaten track.”

“Your universities teach you to be eternal cynics, a cynicism that can be only drowned in alcohol and diet pills and psychoanalysts and golf. Forget your cynicism. There is not one who has more respect for life than a revolutionist.”

“Sometimes you suffer for the things that are important to you.”