The person we know at first, she thinks, is not the one we know at last.

Pain is not wat you get, it is wat you give.

He might have been naive, but he didn't care; he said he's rather die with his heart on his sleeve than end up another cynic.

Words are good for saying what things are, but sometimes they don't function for what things aren't.

Whatever you say, say nothing.

I'm not so sure that I can teach people how to, you know, write dialogue or create plot or anything like that. But if I can get them and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you can do this, and if I see that fire in their eyes, that's when I think I know a writer.

One of those out-of-the-ordinary days that made sense of the slew of ordinary days. New York had a way of doing that. Every now and then the city shook its soul out. It assailed you with an image, or a day, or a crime, or a terror, or a beauty so difficult to wrap your mind around that you had to shake your head in disbelief.