"You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to your reflexes - that means your [preparation:]. That's where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you're going to get found out now, under the bright lights."

"If you take guns away from legal gun owners, then the only people who would have guns would be the bad guys. Even a pacifist would get violent if someone were trying to kill him or her. You would fight for your life, whatever your beliefs."

"Life is an extraordinary gift some people appear not to appreciate. In every breath and scent, every touch and sight we are gifted by new experience and the chance to feel the richness of experience. Every sound we hear, from the song of a bird to the harshness of an angry voice, is a miracle."

"If a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support... Autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice."

"She wanted to get some personal profit out of things, and she rejected as useless all that did not contribute to the immediate desires of her heart, being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, looking for emotions, not landscapes."

"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

"The essence of death is discovered in the gap between one moment ceasing and another one beginning. That essence is the wakefulness that is our true nature."

"MacMillian pinched the bridge of his nose. Conspiracy theories, secret societies... What the hell had he gotten himself into? What was next? Vampires? Werewolves?"

"I reached out and placed my hand on the book and thought maybe someday I wouldn't need the bruises or the scars anymore. Maybe someday it would be all right for the scars to go away."

"Martial arts is a life journey. One of the things my teacher taught me a long time ago was that everyone's path to the mastery of a certain system is different. Some people's path is a very direct route, where others might wind back and forth if you are injured or something."