“There's an old saying," Buck said. "A hundred things can go wrong in a holdup, and if you can think of fifty of them you're a damn genius.”

“Without the right to defend yourself--and the right to possesss the means to do it--all other supposed rights are so much hot air.”

“The notion that we've made vast moral progress and are now a less violent species is belied by our awesome powers of destruction, our military might, police forces as well-armed as soldiers. Without the threat of such violent force behind it, all law would be meaningless. I prefer stories that remind us of that. At its core, history is a story of violence at work. It all comes down to the old saw that, however much you can gain with a kind word, you can gain more with a kind word and a gun.”

“Pride has traditionally been regarded as the foremost of the Seven Deadly Sins, but it has rather obviously been overtaken by Greed.”

“History is a record of human nature in action.”

“The only things you can ever truly own cannot be bought with money.”

“One of the greatest of human follies is that we think we know ourselves so well, that we know how we would act under any conditions, that we would under any circumstance 'do the right thing.' Well, as many have discovered, you don't really know what you'll do in the dark till the lights go out.”

“Men tend to remember the best things about the women they've loved and to forget the worst, which is why so many men make the same mistakes with women again and again. Women tend to forget the best things about the men they've loved and to remember the worst, which is why so many women become bitter about men.”

“Some of us are always in the borderlands no matter where we might be on the map.”

“A man who can laugh at himself is truly blessed, for he will never lack for amusement.”

“When you make a deal you stick to it. Rock-hard rule. You don't renege, you don't sell out. You hold up your end and expect the other party to do the same. If the other party doesn't, you're entitled to deal with every man of it as you see fit in order to set things right. No--you're more than entitled. You're obligated. Or the rule would mean nothing.”