I have always been caught by the pull of the unremarkable, by the easily missed, infinitely nourishing beauty of the mundane.

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.

Destiny is a right destination for every nation with a mission of destiny.

Big pay and little responsibility are circumstances seldom found together.

The association of books with their readers is unlike any other between objects and their users.

I love any opportunity I have to make music.

Glenn Beck retired or got fired...and a lot of people are asking who will now speak for the raving lunatics who startle you outside of a parking garage?

[The] great fairy Science, who is likely to be queen of all the fairies for many a year to come, can only do you good, and never do you harm.

The Bible teaches that true joy is formed in the midst of the difficult seasons of life.

All artists as a type seem to suffer a great deal, but then so do miners.

They all agree, they are all unanimous in Congress, in the States, on the rostrum, in the sanctuary - everywhere they declare that slavery shall not go into the Territories.