For a moment, I felt as if the universe had turned upside down and we were falling softly into an enormous black bowl of stars, and I knew, beyond any doubt, that everything was going to be alright.

Some people are little Chernobyls, shimmering with silent, spreading poison: get anywhere near them and every breath you take will wreck you from the inside out.

I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too, that it takes as much guts and as much work as loving; that some people, for whatever reason, never learn the knack

Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK.

A bore or an uggo might manage not to get up anyone's nose, but if a girl's got brains and looks and personality, she's going to piss someone off, somewhere along the way.

Don't you ever feel that - that you just need to get away? From everything? That it's all too much?

I hate nostalgia, it's laziness with prettier accessories.

We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.

The thing about being a mystery writer, what marks a mystery writer out from a chick lit author or historical fiction writer, is that you always find a mystery in every situation.

I don't do that kind of negativity. If you put your energy into thinking about how much the fall would hurt, you're already halfway down.

I had been right: freedom smelled like ozone and thunderstorms and gunpowder all at once, like snow and bonfires and cut grass, it tasted like seawater and oranges.

The devil does not care about the theology that a man. Knows as long as he can keep the man away from Christ

Acceptance makes any event put on a new face.

I'm most happy when I am writing at night, because I need space and time to write.

You have to understand that we've had more than 40 years now of massively financed propaganda called the 'War on Drugs'.

With a horror movie, you're making a metaphor. You're making a personalized nightmare for the protagonist.

Liberals see the Constitution itself as 'living' and 'evolving' that is, gradually turning into something that would have been unrecognizable to its authors.

The queen!" someone shouted in alarm, and the King erupted like a wild animal caught in a snare.

I'm always down for a Spice Girls reunion. I love the Scary hair and platforms. Any time of day or night I'll be there.

[Francisco Franco] said they should resort to guerrilla war. Which has a history in Spain.

Another soldier has been killed. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.