Daggers ever at the ready, I went about the day: children fed, linens mended, bedclothes aired. In little ways one conquers fear.

The Queen has been guillotined, accused of crimes beyond imagining. Last night she appeared to me in a dream, handing me her head.

A feeling of disquiet continues to haunt me. As a youth one dreams of love; by the time one wakes, it is too late.

We are born, we live and we die - in the midst of the marvelous.

Each moment of life is a step toward death.

Splendid,' Abbé Patin said with a sheepish grin, pulling up alongside. 'There is nothing quite so thrilling as riding in fear of one's life.

Susanne Alleyn's Game of Patience is a well-crafted historical mystery, authentic in every detail. Wonderfully entertaining.

Clearly the sight of a well-muscled forearm incited a woman to utter depravity. How else to explain the invention of cuffs?

There is no such thing as something for nothing.

We would all like to vote for the best man but he is never a candidate.

A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds.

Genius and sunshine have this in common that they are the two most precious gifts of heaven to earth, and are dispensed equally to the just and the unjust.

I feel challenged every day, when I come to work. I feel like I have to step up my game, and that's a great thing.

Oh, rather give me commentators plain, Who with no deep researches vex the brain; Who from the dark and doubtful love to run, And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.

A novelist who ranks with Proust , Kafka , Musil and his friend James Joyce as one of the enduring pillars of Modernism.

You know what I hate about rock? I hate tie-dyed tee shirts. I wouldn't wear a tie-dyed tee shirt unless it was dyed with the urine of Phil Collins and the blood of Jerry Garcia.

I cannot smell mothballs because it's so difficult to get their little legs apart.