Take what you want and pay for it, says God. You can have anything you want, as long as you accept that there is a price and you will have to pay it.

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.

The difference between what you expect and what you get is the problem.

We need to focus on our gift and never allow ourselves to be distracted from the execution of our purpose

Human Angels are souls who have chosen to be born now on this planet to awaken themselves and humanity to Unconditional Love and Awareness of the Oneness.

Blocks usually stem from fear of being judged. If you imagine the world is listening, you'll never write a line.

It's the flaw that brings out the beauty.

The choice of a point of view is the initial act of a culture.

You're who you think you are, even if you never admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You may be in the worst position to judge, but you're in the best position to know.

Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

Something really is wrong with me. And I don't know what it is.

The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.