Novelists who treat violence and cruelty as something to be exploited for their effect, or to enjoy the pleasure of an evacuation, are carriers of a singularly unpleasant disease.

Lord, if there is a heartache Vienna cannot cure I hope never to feel it. I came home cured of everything except Vienna.

The only way to live is to accept each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is: a miracle and unrepeatable.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Surprise will be my last emotion, not fear.

Sadistic literature is not only inhumane. It is anti-human.

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

Hope is a talent like any other.

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present.

You can't argue with a raging want. You can, but it is useless.

She did not so much cook as assassinate food.

Walking out into the night with a water fey was all kinds of stupid. Heck, Kelpies eat people. They may not play with their food as creatively as the Each Uisge, but dead is dead.

I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.

The worst tragedy of sin isn't that it produced bad behavior, but that it produced the idea that bad behavior is strong enough to deflect love.

Saved or searching, we all need to be reminded of God’s interest in us individually and His love for us personally.

One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.

Foreknowledge is power.

I don't count that relationship with Ricky. It's just like a blip at this point. I had to fall in love with the devil himself to get this sweet angel, Jack.

I can’t tell by looking in your eyes whether you’re a priest or a crook.

I'm not a person who carries my emotions on my sleeve.

All of us who grew up before World War II are immigrants in time, immigrants from an earlier world, living in an age essentially different from anything we knew before.