Outside, the September air was enticingly fragrant, yellow with pollen and rich, lemony sunlight.

I just finished Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad," which I think is a work of genius.

I knew what it was to yearn for a life so distant it seemed that it had never been anything more than a dream.

Do people choose the art that inspires them — do they think it over, decide they might prefer the fabulous to the real? For me, it was those early readings of fairy tales that made me who I was as a reader and, later on, as a storyteller.

...but now the worst crime was pretending to be something you were not.

I wept to think that life went on even when so much had been lost, that rain still fell and myrtle grew between the rocks.

Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.