There I was, an 18-year-old mimic rooming with a blind whistler.

Life is available to anyone no matter what age. All you have to do is grab it.

Life is confusing. We're all just trying to get on with it, that's all.

You never really feel somebody's suffering. You only feel their death.

Aggression in bears can be and often is a stepping stone to friendship. Friendship and alliances frequently develop by repeated interactions, with initial aggression that lessens over time.

It was all too easy to make things up, it was like skating on thin ice, it was like doing dainty pirouettes on a brittle crust over water thousands of fathoms deep.

When women's true history shall have been written, her part in the upbuilding of this nation will astound the world.

Arbitrage human nature. It's not going to change any time soon.

It is difficult, almost impossible, to find the book from which something either valuable or amusing may not be found, if the proper alembic be applied.

I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate.

Hazrat Mahal, Begum of Oudh, during the national liberation uprising of 1857-59 in India headed the rebels.

I'm not recognised much at all.

But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.

To be honest, I don't think of any of my characters as minor characters - they're all the main characters in a story that I don't necessarily get to tell.