I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.

...with a grief no less sharp for not being intimate with its object.

That surge of power and delight, of confidence, of control. That sudden sense of the richness of the world. Its infinite possibility.

It was like waking from a nightmare to a worse nightmare.

their reality was far more interesting than any idealized version could possibly be

But, if I dare say it, it wasn't until I had helped kill a man that I realized how elusive and complex an act a murder can actually be, and not necessarily attributable to one dramatic motive.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw, " that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

I have only to glance over my shoulder for all those years to drop away and I see it behind me again, the ravine, rising all green and black through the saplings, a picture that will never leave me.

The ceilings had set off a ghostly echo, giving all that desperate hilarity the quality of a memory even as I sat listening to it, memories of things I'd never known.

I sometimes get the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture.

Though Julian could be marvelously kind in difficult circumstances of all sorts, I sometimes got the feeling that he was less pleased by kindness itself than by the elegance of the gesture.

Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do.

There are creatures in this world, small things and pretty things, which burn within them a fire for survival.

Madam: Are you lucky, Debora?Debora: What do you mean?Madam: Well, you don't look that happy today...Debora: Is it that clear?

Mother was, ' June thought, 'a beautiful little ornament that was damaged.' Her broken edges cut her daughters in ways both emotional and physical, and only sharpened with age.

I usually just speak in English when I'm on the basketball court. For some reason, my mind never even tried to cross any other language when I'm playing basketball.

I'm not sure if that answers the question and I have absolutely no problem with any major world religion on Earth.

Why should we refuse the happiness this hour gives us, because some other hour might take it away?

I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.

He was the ghost you never saw coming, death breathing down your neck before you even realized you were in the crosshairs.

I'm not focused on the outrageousness. I'm just focused on being funny, and raising my kids. I don't even read the newspaper, I don't read that crap.