Whatever it was her father wanted, Emma did not know how to provide it. She felt confused by what he did, and imagined the problem was a lack in her, rather than him. And there was something

I want to kiss the bottom of the ocean before I burst through its surface into the sunlight. Otherwise I'll always be wondering about what was left unseen at the bottom.

her eyes are unfathomable to me, hostile, even, as if she had removed herself to a place where I cannot reach her - somewhere I cannot know.

She fails to see who I am, even, for her eyes do not, will not, take me in. Instead they transmit a powerful message. She is like a billboard flashing, starkly: 'Keep Out'.

When fiction has become reality, life may turn into a fairy tale or a firestorm. Tina, time has come to pull up one’s socks and start relearning and reassessing living. ("Another empty room")

They no longer wanted to entice anyone

Crazy. It was the same word María and Tía Rosa flung at Grandpa Lázaro. The same word anyone said when they didn't understand something. "Crazy" was a way to shut people up, disregard them entirely.

When the dust of death has choked a great man's voice, the common words he said turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked like horses draw like griffins.

Taoism has no rules. It's a suggestion for preceiving life in its wholeness, without unnessary categorization, yet enjoying the beauty of categorization.

Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clenches his fist.

I don't like writing with real people in mind.

More than 3,500 hardcover novels are published each year. Even the most avid reader buys fewer than one a week.

The image of all the cars leaving pastel-colored people at the same time has never really left me as an anti-ambition for life!

That's what perseverance is. You go through some tough times and you fight through it. And now, it's over. It's over.