The earth here is beautiful. And it still belongs to the dead.

I don't like myself you know. I love myself. I'm devoted to myself till my dying day. But I don't like myself.

You reach deep down and bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book, but you don't know everything about it. You can't.

There are too many other inexplicable things around us--horrors, threats, mysteries that draw you in and then inevitably disenchant you. Back to the predictable and humdrum. The prince is never going to come, everybody knows that; and maybe Sleeping Beauty's dead.

as they die, the ones we love, we lose our witnesses, our watchers, those who know and understand the tiny little meaningless patterns, those words drawn in water with a stick. And there is nothing left but the endless flow.

What I did was take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin Mary, and sought to make Him utterly believable, a vital breathing character.

I don't believe in anything, Mother," I said. "You told Armand long ago that you believe you'll find answers in the great jungles and forests; that the stars will finally reveal a vast truth. But I don't believe in anything. And that makes me stronger than you think