Nell was not one for friends and had never hidden her distaste for most other humans, their neurotic compulsion for the acquisition of allies.

You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing.

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.

Memory is a cruel mistress with whom we all must learn to dance.

It's a terrible thing, isn't it, the way we throw people away?

Reluctance to begin is quick to befriend procrastination. . . .

In each man's heart there lies a hole. A dark abyss of need, the filling of which takes precedence over all else.

His words had tossed the book that was her life into the air and the pages had been blown into disarray, could never be put back together to tell the same story.

It was such a pleasure to sink one's hands into the warm earth, to feel at one's fingertips the possibilities of the new season.

There's a market for mysteries for adults. That feeling of opening a book and delving inside and not coming out until you've closed the book.

But history is a faithless teller whose cruel recourse to hindsight makes fools of its actors.

Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

I just am a huge cheerleader for getting kids interested in science and technology.

Kissing babies and hugging fat girls.

If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one.

A brand is an emotional construct. It helps you to project an image to the world which you'd like to own.

I was going to get my teeth whitened, but I said, "I'll just get a tan instead."

You can get assent to almost any proposition so long as you are not going to do anything about it.

I'm not out to change the world. I'm out to change mine.

Oh yeah, I'm an Essex boy and proud of it.