“I cannot believe you harbor any illusions about the barbarians being nature’s noblemen. I soon lost mine. They were every bit as ruthless. They were simply less efficient.”

A Testament (1957)

True/Slant, "The Weekly Standard, Ethan Epstein, and Jesus" http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/07/18/the-weekly-standard-ethan-epstein-and-jesus/, 18 July 2010.

Page 336
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

10 Questions for Guillermo del Toro, Time Magazine, 9/5/2011. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2090370,00.html

"Away When You Were Here", The Sound of the Life of the Mind (2012).
Song lyrics, With Ben Folds Five

Source: Titus Groan (1946), Chapter 40 “Meanwhile” (pp. 230-231)

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)
Source: Conan the Barbarian Omnibus -The Original Stories
Context: He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

Source: The Four Pillars of Investing (2002), Chapter 14, Getting Started, Keeping It Going, p. 290.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 11 September 2006