Again, no disrespect intended, but she looked to me like a divorce that hadn't found a courtroom yet.

— James Anderson

History has a way of chasing gravity just like water, feeding into other parts of itself to become something else, something larger and grander, until the one pure thing it was no longer exists.

— James Anderson

If someone you love asks you to give up something you love, don't do it.

— James Anderson

Imagination is one of the few things a man can count on if he's got the reality to feed it.

— James Anderson

In all those stories about people who sold their souls to the devil, I never quite understood why the devil was the bad guy, or why it was okay to screw him out of his soul. They got what they wanted: fame, money, love, whatever—though usually it turned out not to be what they really wanted or expected. Was that the devil's fault? I never thought so. Like John Wayne said, "Life's tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid.

— James Anderson

I remembered a definition of chivalry I'd heard once: a man protecting a woman against every man but himself.

— James Anderson

Like a carpenter with two broken legs at the bottom of a beautiful staircase. Maybe I can't climb the stairs, ma'am, but at least let me admire the workmanship.

— James Anderson

Like every other house-renting, paycheck-to-paycheck, heel dragging working American, it wouldn't matter if I stepped in it by accident or was pushed, or simply whiffed it as I walked by. With the powers in play, guilt or innocence had nothing to do with anything.

— James Anderson

Maybe it was being orphaned and alone all my life, but I always steeled for the worst outcome I could envision. That way I could shrug and be almost happy with anything that fell short of the worst. It was a peculiar life skill and one I had gotten damn good at.

— James Anderson

Men were often far different in their roles as fathers than they were as suitors, the memories of which kept them, out of necessity, both vigilant and violent, and even in tender moments, to their daughters.

— James Anderson