...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged forever and what’s done can never be undone.

— Paul Hoffman

The heart of a man is a small thing, but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner, but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...) And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?

— Paul Hoffman

The man who believes that honesty is the best policy is not an honest man.

— Paul Hoffman

...the older I get, the more I believe that if love is to be judged by most of its visible effects, it looks more like hatred than friendship.

— Paul Hoffman

...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Barbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...

— Paul Hoffman

T was once famously said that it is as well that wars are so ruinously expensive, else we would never stop fighting them. However, well said, it seems also to be endlessly forgotten that, while there may be just wars and unjust wars, there are never any cheap wars.

— Paul Hoffman

Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.

— Paul Hoffman

We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.

— Paul Hoffman

When he said someone had 'died", Eros meant that the person had stopped doing mathematics. When he said someone had "left", the person had died.

— Paul Hoffman

Where have you come from boy?' He looked at her again.' From hell, to take you away in the night and eat you.

— Paul Hoffman