Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!

The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. Where pathos rules, where pathos is finally derived, a character has fought a battle he could not possibly…

Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I'll cut off my right hand before I ever reach for you again.

There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the i…

Yet voluble of dumb violence. You look Across the roofs as sigil and as ward And in your centre mark them and are cowed . . .

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets.

'If I tell you, I'll have to kill you.'