Joseph Riebe

“Sometimes love is taken away unjustly, but not until the very end do you stop believing and then it is very bitter. It is bitter because somewhere within you the perfect standard still lives, the pure expectation against which failure and betrayal are contrasted like the dark shadows on a moonlit road.”
― Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case

“Marriages are made in heaven which is why they cause so much trouble on earth.”
― Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and in Shadow

“I wanted the music to be full, to surround us, to lift us like the swell, so I rented a bloody orchestra. You only live once.”
― Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and in Shadow

“Humankind, or at least American-kind, will lose its edge as we produce more and more pipsqueaks and everyone gets nicer. Whole generations of pipsqueaks will be so fucking nice you won't be able to tell a man from a woman...And it will get worse and worse as people mistake nice for good. HItler was nice, supposedly, most of the time. A lot of good that did...”
― Mark Helprin, In Sunlight and in Shadow