`` That was a terrible thing to do '', I said to Oso.

`` But that was war '', I said.

Still, I was disgusted with myself for agreeing with Montero's methods.

In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

Next to him was a young boy I was sure had sat near me at one of the trading sessions.

Now under me I could see him for what he really was, a boy dressed up in streaks of paint.

Such was my state of mind that I did not question the possibility of this ; ;

under the circumstances I was only too willing to confess all.

I was nearly thirty at the time.

It was dark and, I sensed, very large ; ;

Sometimes I was aware of people moving about in the darkness.

This impressed me, until I realized how limited was his sphere of influence.

I felt certain he was really a spineless little man.

Once, pressing him, I learned that his job was only part-time, in the afternoons when nothing went on in the hall.

In the mornings, I was informed, fluorescent tubes, similar to the one above the counter, illuminated the entire hall.

I was shown, instead, a batch of white tickets of the sort handed out, he told me, every morning.

Now, here was something of obvious importance to me, yet when I reached for the tickets he snatched them away from my hand.

It was, I felt, possible that they were men who, having received no tickets for that day, had remained in the hall, to sleep perhaps, in the corners farthest removed from the counter with its overhead light.

I felt certain it was self-appointed.

I decided to see no more of the clerk until the processing of my papers was completed.

I was constantly searching for clues around the neighborhood of the hall.

I don't know yet, it's crazy ; ;

It was just me and Eileen getting drunk together like we used to in the old days, and me staring at her across the table crazy to get my hands on her partly because I wanted to wring her neck because she was so ornery but mostly because she was so wonderful to touch.

I was crazy about her all over again.

I grabbed her arm and she turned on me and for a scared second I thought that maybe Wally was right, and she was crazy.

Little by little, during the week, Chris and I discovered the crazy unbelievable way Nadine and Wally had lived.

`` It's so crazy '', I told him once.

Jones said of that night, " I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that.

And at one point, I realized it really doesn't have this kind of crazy humor that people from New York would expect to see.

I say, where the insanity is absolute, and is duly proved: For if reason and humanity enforce the plea in these circumstances, it is no less necessary to observe a caution and reserve in applying the law, as shall hinder it from being understood, that there is any privilege in a case of mere weakness of intellect, or a strange and moody humor, or a crazy and capricious or irritable temper.

I must have been crazy ; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it.

Before the 2008 presidential election he said, " On social issues, I lean Libertarian, minus the crazy stuff ," but said in December 2011 that if he were president he would do whatever Bill Clinton advised him to do because that " would lead to policies that are a sensible middle ground.

: The older inhabitants of Puzzleland will remember how in the early seventies I drove the entire world crazy over a little box of movable pieces which became known as the " 14 – 15 Puzzle ".

It has all the crazy stuff that I listen to, and my collections I've been making since the ' 70s for going on the road, when I'm sick ... Or the couple of times in my life that I have really been down, music is what always dances me out of bed.

His CB handle was " Crazy Cooter " and he often started his CB transmissions with " Breaker one, Breaker one, I might be crazy but I ain't dumb, Craaaazy Cooter comin ' atcha, come on.

Sherman offered Grant an example from his own life, " Before the battle of Shiloh, I was cast down by a mere newspaper assertion of ' crazy ', but that single battle gave me new life, and I'm now in high feather.

" I was crazy about the songs we selected from those great Nashville writers, and the acoustic-based production that Wendy and I put together was just a joy to make and to listen to.

I have to think about it.

I meant what I said about that fire.

I don't know what makes you think you can get away with this kind of business, and I don't care about that, either.

Later I would remember what this pompous little man had told me about the worth of a ticket.

My future lay solely with the hall, yet what did I know about the hall at this point??

For weeks I wandered about this neighborhood of warehouses and garages, truck terminals and taxi repair shops, gasoline pumps and longshoremen's lunch counters, yet never did I cease to feel myself a stranger there.

When I asked him what, if anything, I could do about it, he surprised me by referring me to the director of the hall.

I understand how you feel about the child.

`` I don't know nothin' about him ''.

I suppose you don't know anything about a piece of two-by-four, either ; ;

`` No, I remembered reading about you in the papers and that you lived here, and when it happened all I could think of was '' -- This time she stopped the rush of words herself.

I spun about and clattered through the front room to the door.

Sometimes I wondered vaguely what he did about women for my Aunt, by blood, had died some years ago, but neither of us said anything.

Even as she was telling me about it I became aware of a give-away flush that suffused her neck and moved upwards to her cheeks, and subconsciously I realized that when she entered the store she did not switch on the lights.

I was standing beside her, watching the outspread palms and wondering about the old horsehair sofa against the wall on which he sometimes napped.

I was thinking about that.

When I show up he will know you are a good wife to have told him about it ''.

`` I know something about Eromonga.