Your enemies are always manufactured to suit your purpose, right? How can you have a good enemy? You have to have an utterly evil enemy - and then the evilness has to progress.

...As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart deals," to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate Globalization-or shall we call it by its name?-Imperialism-needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.

Her grief grieved her. His devastated her.

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

I need fiction like you need to eat or exercise.

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.

If you want to control somebody, support them. Or marry them.