Writing gets easier once you know your allies and banish your enemies.

I think I have become a better writer since having children. It improves creativity, particularly because once you have children it makes you realise the story isn’t about you.

It's the very awfulness of [murder] that makes reading about it feel so cozy.

Love built on pain-the kind that lasts: whatever you love can be taken away from us at any moment but the loss of what we love belongs to us forever.

Muscle has memory: the body knows things the mind will not admit.

We are taught we can redeem them, she said to me once. We are taught it as soon as we can read. We can turn the beast into a prince, if only we love him enough.

There's a certain sort of a man whose every charm lies in his predictability.

It must be every barrister's nightmare, something that finds him or her unprepared.

Everything is disproportionate in the middle of the night.

Smiling has special powers that you can't believe it is capable of doing, like calming fears, insecurities, hurt and anxiety just like beauty around you.

A peace that blacked yer eye, ' I say. 'A peace that split yer lip.' He looks at me for another second and then gives a sad snort. “The words of a sage, ” he says, “in the voice of a hick.

Making a whole is very important. Most people paint things and forget the whole.

I wonder how many people have been killed, tortured, and in some cases cannibalized, all because certain Christians (mis)applied the book of Joshua to their lives.

It will always take a good deal more courage to do something foolishly dangerous, when it is planned, than when it happens by surprise.

Ninety nine failed solutions equals a gain of 99 pieces of information.

Trust is a two way street. If your government does not trust you, how can you trust your government?

Men who have great riches and little culture rush into business, because they are weary of themselves.

No matter if you're just starting out or if you are at the peak of your career, the more you work in your strength zone, the more successful you will be.

There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence.