There’s no condition one adjusts to so quickly as a state of war.

I was the girl he had chosen to kiss. He wanted, somehow to set me free. He didn't want to burn my photo or toss it away, but he didn't want to look at me anymore, either.

Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.

In my 20s, I railed against anything 'spiritual', I thought it was all crap.

At fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I’d never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood, in the walls of hers there were windows.

She didn't even have to smile, and she rarely did outside her house--it was the eyes, her dancer's carriage, the way she seemed to deliberate over the smallest movement of her body.

How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.