I felt like a number of things in me as a writer just clicked.

Long, dark, and lovely she had been, in those days before her mind broke and the parts scattered and she let them go.

Fading light buttered the ridges until shadows licked them clean and they were lost to nightfall.

Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.

The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.

He unscrewed the lid, set it on the dash, snorted from the bottle twice, banged the steering wheel, and said, 'You got to be ready to die every day - then you got a chance.'

Ree, brunette and sixteen, with milk skin and abrupt green eyes, stood bare-armed in a fluttering yellowed dress, face to the wind, her cheeks reddening as if smacked and smacked again.

I said shut up once already, with my mouth.

This is how sudden things happened that haunted forever.

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.

The promise of adventure is often more exciting than the adventure itself.

When I am in love, I am ridiculously and hopelessly romantic.

I've lived long enough to have learned, the closer you get to the fire, the more you get burned.

If all babies are so cute, how the hell do we have so many ugly people in the world?

I had an attachment disorder.

And thou art terrible--the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony, are thine.

Fang? Are you- like Max?" asked Dr. Martinez. "Nope,"he said, sounding bored. "I'm the smart one." I resisted the urge to kick him in the shin.

I got to show off in front of my husband, who married me as I was stepping out of the business, so he had no idea that I could strut my stuff on the stage.

I knew I wasn't attractive, and I was very happy about that. I didn't want to be attractive. I didn't want to attract. As long as no one wanted to be let in, I didn't have to shut anyone out.

I am not, in fact, a superhero. Just a humble, mild-mannered civil rights attorney.