[I]n communism, you'd threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.

Writing is hard work, and if anything's true about the process, it's that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper. What's less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I've changed the cat little because I didn't know what my characters were going to say next.

Like putting a name to my problems would solve anything

The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw.

All the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy.

Use your imagination only on the future, never on the present or the past.

For an entire populace, change, growth, and spontaneity were dangerous. Acting upon a personal desire, whispering a hidden longing, revealing your true feelings - all the human actions we think of as essential to a character - had be censored by the self lest they be punished by the state.