He was golden and beautiful as a sunset.

There's something almost adolescent about Whitman's paean to everything that was and remains good about America.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable.

When a shy person smiles, it’s like the sun coming out.

The Bible - it's sort of the other person in the room. There's this book, the reader, and the Bible.

Wherever you walk, I go with you. Selah.